But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most

when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to

refrain from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are

not wronged ourselves. We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice,

the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right, and

not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts rightly and justly

should ever have cause to fear, and no strong power should ever be able

to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.

Our relations with the other powers of the world are important; but

still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in

wealth, in population, and in power, as a nation has seen during a

century and a quarter of its national life, is inevitably accompanied by

a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation that

rises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and

danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We

now face other perils the very existence of which it was impossible that

they should foresee.

Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes

wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the half century

are felt in every fiber of our social and political being. Never before

have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of

administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a democratic

republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material

well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy,

self-reliance, and individual initiative, also have brought the care and

anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial

centers.

Upon the success of our experiment much depends--not only as regards our

own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the

cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its

foundations, and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to

the world as it is to-day, and to the generations yet unborn.

There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is

every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from

ourselves the gravity of the problems before us, nor fearing to approach

these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them

aright.

Yet after all, tho the problems are new, tho the tasks set before us

differ from the tasks set before our fathers, who founded and preserved

this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and

these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains

essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We

know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people

which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed

will of the free men who compose it.

But we have faith that we shall not prove false to memories of the men

of the mighty past. They did their work; they left us the splendid

heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we

shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our

children's children.

To do so, we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday

affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of

hardihood, and endurance, and, above all, the power of devotion to a

lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the

days of Washington; which made great the men who preserved this Republic

in the days of Abraham Lincoln.

ON AMERICAN MOTHERHOOD[38]

(1905)

In our modern industrial civilization there are many and grave dangers

to counterbalance the splendors and the triumphs. It is not a good thing

to see cities grow at disproportionate speed relatively to the country;

for the small land owners, the men who own their little homes, and

therefore to a very large extent the men who till farms, the men of the

soil, have hitherto made the foundation of lasting national life in

every State; and, if the foundation becomes either too weak or too

narrow, the superstructure, no matter how attractive, is in imminent

danger of falling.

But far more important than the question of the occupation of our

citizens is the question of how their family life is conducted. No

matter what that occupation may be, as long as there is a real home and

as long as those who make up that home do their duty to one another, to

their neighbors and to the State, it is of minor consequence whether the

man's trade is plied in the country or in the city, whether it calls for

the work of the hands or for the work of the head.

No piled-up wealth, no splendor of material growth, no brilliance of

artistic development, will permanently avail any people unless its home

life is healthy, unless the average man possesses honesty, courage,

common sense, and decency, unless he works hard and is willing at need

to fight hard; and unless the average woman is a good wife, a good

mother, able and willing to perform the first and greatest duty of

womanhood, able and willing to bear, and to bring up as they should be

brought up, healthy children, sound in body, mind, and character, and

numerous enough so that the race shall increase and not decrease.

There are certain old truths which will be true as long as this world

endures, and which no amount of progress can alter. One of these is the

truth that the primary duty of the husband is to be the home-maker, the

breadwinner for his wife and children, and that the primary duty of the

woman is to be the helpmate, the housewife, and mother. The woman

should have ample educational advantages; but save in exceptional cases

the man must be, and she need not be, and generally ought not to be,

trained for a lifelong career as the family breadwinner; and,

therefore, after a certain point, the training of the two must normally

be different because the duties of the two are normally different. This

does not mean inequality of function, but it does mean that normally

there must be dissimilarity of function. On the whole, I think the duty

of the woman the more important, the more difficult, and the more

honorable of the two; on the whole I respect the woman who does her duty

even more than I respect the man who does his.

No ordinary work done by a man is either as hard or as responsible as

the work of a woman who is bringing up a family of small children; for

upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of the

day but often every hour of the night. She may have to get up night

after night to take care of a sick child, and yet must by day continue

to do all her household duties as well; and if the family means are

scant she must usually enjoy even her rare holidays taking her whole

brood of children with her. The birth pangs make all men the debtors of

all women. Above all our sympathy and regard are due to the struggling

wives among those whom Abraham Lincoln called the plain people, and whom

he so loved and trusted; for the lives of these women are often led on

the lonely heights of quiet, self-sacrificing heroism.

Just as the happiest and most honorable and most useful task that can be

set any man is to earn enough for the support of his wife and family,

for the bringing up and starting in life of his children, so the most

important, the most honorable and desirable task which can be set any

woman is to be a good and wise mother in a home marked by self-respect

and mutual forbearance, by willingness to perform duty, and by refusal

to sink into self-indulgence or avoid that which entails effort and

self-sacrifice. Of course there are exceptional men and exceptional

women who can do and ought to do much more than this, who can lead and

ought to lead great careers of outside usefulness in addition to--not as

substitutes for--their home work; but I am not speaking of exceptions; I

am speaking of the primary duties, I am speaking of the average

citizens, the average men and women who make up the nation.

Inasmuch as I am speaking to an assemblage of mothers, I shall have

nothing whatever to say in praise of an easy life. Yours is the work

which is never ended. No mother has an easy time, the most mothers have

very hard times; and yet what true mother would barter her experience of

joy and sorrow in exchange for a life of cold selfishness, which insists

upon perpetual amusement and the avoidance of care, and which often

finds its fit dwelling place in some flat designed to furnish with the

least possible expenditure of effort the maximum of comfort and of

luxury, but in which there is literally no place for children?

The woman who is a good wife, a good mother, is entitled to our respect

as is no one else; but she is entitled to it only because, and so long

as, she is worthy of it. Effort and self-sacrifice are the law of worthy

life for the man as for the woman; tho neither the effort nor the

self-sacrifice may be the same for the one as for the other. I do not in

the least believe in the patient Griselda type of woman, in the woman

who submits to gross and long continued ill treatment, any more than I

believe in a man who tamely submits to wrongful aggression. No

wrong-doing is so abhorrent as wrong-doing by a man toward the wife and

the children who should arouse every tender feeling in his nature.

Selfishness toward them, lack of tenderness toward them, lack of

consideration for them, above all, brutality in any form toward them,

should arouse the heartiest scorn and indignation in every upright soul.

I believe in the woman keeping her self-respect just as I believe in the

man doing so. I believe in her rights just as much as I believe in the

man's, and indeed a little more; and I regard marriage as a partnership,

in which each partner is in honor bound to think of the rights of the

other as well as of his or her own. But I think that the duties are even

more important than the rights; and in the long run I think that the

reward is ampler and greater for duty well done, than for the insistence

upon individual rights, necessary tho this, too, must often be. Your

duty is hard, your responsibility great; but greatest of all is your

reward. I do not pity you in the least. On the contrary, I feel respect

and admiration for you.

Into the woman's keeping is committed the destiny of the generations to

come after us. In bringing up your children you mothers must remember

that while it is essential to be loving and tender it is no less

essential to be wise and firm. Foolishness and affection must not be

treated as interchangeable terms; and besides training your sons and

daughters in the softer and milder virtues, you must seek to give them

those stern and hardy qualities which in after life they will surely

need. Some children will go wrong in spite of the best training; and

some will go right even when their surroundings are most unfortunate;

nevertheless an immense amount depends upon the family training. If you

mothers through weakness bring up your sons to be selfish and to think

only of themselves, you will be responsible for much sadness among the

women who are to be their wives in the future. If you let your daughters

grow up idle, perhaps under the mistaken impression that as you

yourselves have had to work hard they shall know only enjoyment, you are

preparing them to be useless to others and burdens to themselves. Teach

boys and girls alike that they are not to look forward to lives spent in

avoiding difficulties, but to lives spent in overcoming difficulties.

Teach them that work, for themselves and also for others, is not curse

but a blessing; seek to make them happy, to make them enjoy life, but

seek also to make them face life with the steadfast resolution to wrest

success from labor and adversity, and to do their whole duty before God

and to man. Surely she who can thus train her sons and her daughters is

thrice fortunate among women.

There are many good people who are denied the supreme blessing of

children, and for these we have the respect and sympathy always due to

those who, from no fault of their own, are denied any of the other great

blessings of life. But the man or woman who deliberately foregoes these

blessings, whether from viciousness, coldness, shallow-heartedness,

self-indulgence, or mere failure to appreciate aright the difference

between the all-important and the unimportant,--why, such a creature

merits contempt as hearty as any visited upon the soldier who runs away

in battle, or upon the man who refuses to work for the support of those

dependent upon him, and who tho able-bodied is yet content to eat in

idleness the bread which others provide.

The existence of women of this type forms one of the most unpleasant and

unwholesome features of modern life. If any one is so dim of vision as

to fail to see what a thoroughly unlovely creature such a woman is I

wish they would read Judge Robert Grant's novel "Unleavened Bread,"

ponder seriously the character of Selma, and think of the fate that

would surely overcome any nation which developed its average and typical

woman along such lines. Unfortunately it would be untrue to say that

this type exists only in American novels. That it also exists in

American life is made unpleasantly evident by the statistics as to the

dwindling families in some localities. It is made evident in equally

sinister fashion by the census statistics as to divorce, which are

fairly appalling; for easy divorce is now as it ever has been, a bane to

any nation, a curse to society, a menace to the home, an incitement to

married unhappiness and to immorality, an evil thing for men and a still

more hideous evil for women. These unpleasant tendencies in our American

life are made evident by articles such as those which I actually read

not long ago in a certain paper, where a clergyman was quoted, seemingly

with approval, as expressing the general American attitude when he said

that the ambition of any save a very rich man should be to rear two

children only, so as to give his children an opportunity "to taste a few

of the good things of life."

This man, whose profession and calling should have made him a moral

teacher, actually set before others the ideal, not of training children

to do their duty, not of sending them forth with stout hearts and ready

minds to win triumphs for themselves and their country, not of allowing

them the opportunity, and giving them the privilege of making their own

place in the world, but, forsooth, of keeping the number of children so

limited that they might "taste a few good things!" The way to give a

child a fair chance in life is not to bring it up in luxury, but to see

that it has the kind of training that will give it strength of

character. Even apart from the vital question of national life, and

regarding only the individual interest of the children themselves,

happiness in the true sense is a hundredfold more apt to come to any

given member of a healthy family of healthy-minded children, well

brought up, well educated, but taught that they must shift for

themselves, must win their own way, and by their own exertions make

their own positions of usefulness, than it is apt to come to those whose

parents themselves have acted on and have trained their children to act

on, the selfish and sordid theory that the whole end of life is to

"taste a few good things."

The intelligence of the remark is on a par with its morality; for the

most rudimentary mental process would have shown the speaker that if the

average family in which there are children contained but two children

the nation as a whole would decrease in population so rapidly that in

two or three generations it would very deservedly be on the point of

extinction, so that the people who had acted on this base and selfish

doctrine would be giving place to others with braver and more robust

ideals. Nor would such a result be in any way regrettable; for a race

that practised such doctrine--that is, a race that practised race

suicide--would thereby conclusively show that it was unfit to exist, and

that it had better give place to people who had not forgotten the

primary laws of their being.

To sum up, then, the whole matter is simple enough. If either a race or

an individual prefers the pleasure of more effortless ease, of

self-indulgence, to the infinitely deeper, the infinitely higher

pleasures that come to those who know the toil and the weariness, but

also the joy, of hard duty well done, why, that race or that individual

must inevitably in the end pay the penalty of leading a life both vapid

and ignoble. No man and no woman really worthy of the name can care for

the life spent solely or chiefly in the avoidance of risk and trouble

and labor. Save in exceptional cases the prizes worth having in life

must be paid for, and the life worth living must be a life of work for a

worthy end, and ordinarily of work more for others than for one's self.

The woman's task is not easy--no task worth doing is easy--but in doing

it, and when she has done it, there shall come to her the highest and

holiest joy known to mankind; and having done it, she shall have the

reward prophesied in Scripture; for her husband and her children, yes,

and all people who realize that her work lies at the foundation of all

national happiness and greatness, shall rise up and call her blessed.

_ALTON B. PARKER_

THE CALL TO DEMOCRATS

From a speech opening the National Democratic Convention at Baltimore,

Md., June, 1912.

It is not the wild and cruel methods of revolution and violence that are

needed to correct the abuses incident to our Government as to all things

human. Neither material nor moral progress lies that way. We have made

our Government and our complicated institutions by appeals to reason,

seeking to educate all our people that, day after day, year after year,

century after century, they may see more clearly, act more justly,

become more and more attached to the fundamental ideas that underlie our

society. If we are to preserve undiminished the heritage bequeathed us,

and add to it those accretions without which society would perish, we

shall need all the powers that the school, the church, the court, the

deliberative assembly, and the quiet thought of our people can bring to

bear.

We are called upon to do battle against the unfaithful guardians of our

Constitution and liberties and the hordes of ignorance which are pushing

forward only to the ruin of our social and governmental fabric.

Too long has the country endured the offenses of the leaders of a party

which once knew greatness. Too long have we been blind to the bacchanal

of corruption. Too long have we listlessly watched the assembling of the

forces that threaten our country and our firesides.

The time has come when the salvation of the country demands the

restoration to place and power of men of high ideals who will wage

unceasing war against corruption in politics, who will enforce the law

against both rich and poor, and who will treat guilt as personal and

punish it accordingly.

What is our duty? To think alike as to men and measures? Impossible!

Even for our great party! There is not a reactionary among us. All

Democrats are Progressives. But it is inevitably human that we shall not

all agree that in a single highway is found the only road to progress,

or each make the same man of all our worthy candidates his first choice.

It is impossible, however, and it is our duty to put aside all

selfishness, to consent cheerfully that the majority shall speak for

each of us, and to march out of this convention shoulder to shoulder,

intoning the praises of our chosen leader--and that will be his due,

whichever of the honorable and able men now claiming our attention shall

be chosen.

_JOHN W. WESCOTT_

NOMINATING WOODROW WILSON

At the National Democratic Convention, Baltimore, Maryland, June, 1912.

The New Jersey delegation is commissioned to represent the great cause

of Democracy and to offer you as its militant and triumphant leader a

scholar, not a charlatan; a statesman, not a doctrinaire; a profound

lawyer, not a splitter of legal hairs; a political economist, not an

egotistical theorist; a practical politician, who constructs, modifies,

restrains, without disturbance and destruction; a resistless debater and

consummate master of statement, not a mere sophist; a humanitarian, not

a defamer of characters and lives; a man whose mind is at once

cosmopolitan and composite of America; a gentleman of unpretentious

habits, with the fear of God in his heart and the love of mankind

exhibited in every act of his life; above all a public servant who has

been tried to the uttermost and never found wanting--matchless,

unconquerable, the ultimate Democrat, Woodrow Wilson.

New Jersey has reasons for her course. Let us not be deceived in our

premises. Campaigns of vilification, corruption and false pretence have

lost their usefulness. The evolution of national energy is towards a

more intelligent morality in politics and in all other relations. The

situation admits of no compromise. The temper and purpose of the

American public will tolerate no other view. The indifference of the

American people to politics has disappeared. Any platform and any

candidate not conforming to this vast social and commercial behest will

go down to ignominious defeat at the polls.

Men are known by what they say and do. They are known by those who hate

and oppose them. Many years ago Woodrow Wilson said, "No man is great

who thinks himself so, and no man is good who does not try to secure the

happiness and comfort of others." This is the secret of his life. The

deeds of this moral and intellectual giant are known to all men. They

accord, not with the shams and false pretences of politics, but make

national harmony with the millions of patriots determined to correct the

wrongs of plutocracy and reestablish the maxims of American liberty in

all their regnant beauty and practical effectiveness. New Jersey loves

Woodrow Wilson not for the enemies he has made. New Jersey loves him for

what he is. New Jersey argues that Woodrow Wilson is the only candidate

who can not only make Democratic success a certainty, but secure the

electoral vote of almost every State in the Union.

New Jersey will indorse his nomination by a majority of 100,000 of her

liberated citizens. We are not building for a day, or even a generation,

but for all time. New Jersey believes that there is an omniscience in

national instinct. That instinct centers in Woodrow Wilson. He has been

in political life less than two years. He has had no organization; only

a practical ideal--the reestablishment of equal opportunity. Not his

deeds alone, not his immortal words alone, not his personality alone,

not his matchless powers alone, but all combined compel national faith

and confidence in him. Every crisis evolves its master. Time and

circumstance have evolved Woodrow Wilson. The North, the South, the

East, and the West unite in him. New Jersey appeals to this convention

to give the nation Woodrow Wilson, that he may open the gates of

opportunity to every man, woman, and child under our flag, by reforming

abuses, and thereby teaching them, in his matchless words, "to release

their energies intelligently, that peace, justice and prosperity may

reign." New Jersey rejoices, through her freely chosen representatives,

to name for the presidency of the United States the Princeton

schoolmaster, Woodrow Wilson.

_HENRY W. GRADY_

THE RACE PROBLEM

Delivered at the annual banquet of the Boston Merchants' Association, at

Boston, Mass., December 12, 1889.

MR. PRESIDENT:--Bidden by your invitation to a discussion of the race

problem--forbidden by occasion to make a political speech--I appreciate,

in trying to reconcile orders with propriety, the perplexity of the

little maid, who, bidden to learn to swim, was yet adjured, "Now, go, my

darling; hang your clothes on a hickory limb, and don't go near the

water."

The stoutest apostle of the Church, they say, is the missionary, and the

missionary, wherever he unfurls his flag, will never find himself in

deeper need of unction and address than I, bidden to-night to plant the

standard of a Southern Democrat in Boston's banquet hall, and to discuss

the problem of the races in the home of Phillips and of Sumner. But, Mr.

President, if a purpose to speak in perfect frankness and sincerity; if

earnest understanding of the vast interests involved; if a consecrating

sense of what disaster may follow further misunderstanding and

estrangement; if these may be counted upon to steady undisciplined

speech and to strengthen an untried arm--then, sir, I shall find the

courage to proceed.

Happy am I that this mission has brought my feet at last to press New

England's historic soil and my eyes to the knowledge of her beauty and

her thrift. Here within touch of Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill--where

Webster thundered and Longfellow sang, Emerson thought and Channing

preached--here, in the cradle of American letters and almost of American

liberty, I hasten to make the obeisance that every American owes New

England when first he stands uncovered in her mighty presence. Strange

apparition! This stern and unique figure--carved from the ocean and the

wilderness--its majesty kindling and growing amid the storms of winter

and of wars--until at last the gloom was broken, its beauty disclosed in

the sunshine, and the heroic workers rested at its base--while startled

kings and emperors gazed and marveled that from the rude touch of this

handful cast on a bleak and unknown shore should have come the embodied

genius of human government and the perfected model of human liberty! God

bless the memory of those immortal workers, and prosper the fortunes of

their living sons--and perpetuate the inspiration of their handiwork.

Two years ago, sir, I spoke some words in New York that caught the

attention of the North. As I stand here to reiterate, as I have done

everywhere, every word I then uttered--to declare that the sentiments I

then avowed were universally approved in the South--I realize that the

confidence begotten by that speech is largely responsible for my

presence here to-night. I should dishonor myself if I betrayed that

confidence by uttering one insincere word, or by withholding one

essential element of the truth. Apropos of this last, let me confess,

Mr. President, before the praise of New England has died on my lips,

that I believe the best product of her present life is the procession of

seventeen thousand Vermont Democrats that for twenty-two years,

undiminished by death, unrecruited by birth or conversion, have marched

over their rugged hills, cast their Democratic ballots and gone back

home to pray for their unregenerate neighbors, and awake to read the

record of twenty-six thousand Republican majority. May the God of the

helpless and the heroic help them, and may their sturdy tribe increase.

Far to the South, Mr. President, separated from this section by a

line--once defined in irrepressible difference, once traced in

fratricidal blood, and now, thank God, but a vanishing shadow--lies the

fairest and richest domain of this earth. It is the home of a brave and

hospitable people. There is centered all that can please or prosper

humankind. A perfect climate above a fertile soil yields to the

husbandman every product of the temperate zone. There, by night the

cotton whitens beneath the stars, and by day the wheat locks the

sunshine in its bearded sheaf. In the same field the clover steals the

fragrance of the wind, and tobacco catches the quick aroma of the rains.

There are mountains stored with exhaustless treasures; forests--vast and

primeval; and rivers that, tumbling or loitering, run wanton to the sea.

Of the three essential items of all industries--cotton, iron and

wood--that region has easy control. In cotton, a fixed monopoly--in

iron, proven supremacy--in timber, the reserve supply of the Republic.

From this assured and permanent advantage, against which artificial

conditions cannot much longer prevail, has grown an amazing system of

industries. Not maintained by human contrivance of tariff or capital,

afar off from the fullest and cheapest source of supply, but resting in

divine assurance, within touch of field and mine and forest--not set

amid costly farms from which competition has driven the farmer in

despair, but amid cheap and sunny lands, rich with agriculture, to which

neither season nor soil has set a limit--this system of industries is

mounting to a splendor that shall dazzle and illumine the world. That,

sir, is the picture and the promise of my home--a land better and fairer

than I have told you, and yet but fit setting in its material excellence

for the loyal and gentle quality of its citizenship. Against that, sir,

we have New England, recruiting the Republic from its sturdy loins,

shaking from its overcrowded hives new swarms of workers, and touching

this land all over with its energy and its courage. And yet--while in

the Eldorado of which I have told you but fifteen per cent of its lands

are cultivated, its mines scarcely touched, and its population so scant

that, were it set equidistant, the sound of the human voice could not be

heard from Virginia to Texas--while on the threshold of nearly every

house in New England stands a son, seeking, with troubled eyes, some new

land in which to carry his modest patrimony, the strange fact remains

that in 1880 the South had fewer northern-born citizens than she had in

1870--fewer in '70 than in '60. Why is this? Why is it, sir, though the

section line be now but a mist that the breath may dispel, fewer men of

the North have crossed it over to the South, than when it was crimson

with the best blood of the Republic, or even when the slaveholder stood

guard every inch of its way?

There can be but one answer. It is the very problem we are now to

consider. The key that opens that problem will unlock to the world the

fairest half of this Republic, and free the halted feet of thousands

whose eyes are already kindling with its beauty. Better than this, it

will open the hearts of brothers for thirty years estranged, and clasp

in lasting comradeship a million hands now withheld in doubt. Nothing,

sir, but this problem and the suspicions it breeds, hinders a clear

understanding and a perfect union. Nothing else stands between us and

such love as bound Georgia and Massachusetts at Valley Forge and

Yorktown, chastened by the sacrifices of Manassas and Gettysburg, and

illumined with the coming of better work and a nobler destiny than was

ever wrought with the sword or sought at the cannon's mouth.

If this does not invite your patient hearing to-night--hear one thing

more. My people, your brothers in the South--brothers in blood, in

destiny, in all that is best in our past and future--are so beset with

this problem that their very existence depends on its right solution.

Nor are they wholly to blame for its presence. The slave-ships of the

Republic sailed from your ports, the slaves worked in our fields. You

will not defend the traffic, nor I the institution. But I do here

declare that in its wise and humane administration in lifting the slave

to heights of which he had not dreamed in his savage home, and giving

him a happiness he has not yet found in freedom, our fathers left their

sons a saving and excellent heritage. In the storm of war this

institution was lost. I thank God as heartily as you do that human

slavery is gone forever from American soil. But the freedman remains.

With him, a problem without precedent or parallel. Note its appalling

conditions. Two utterly dissimilar races on the same soil--with equal

political and civil rights--almost equal in numbers, but terribly

unequal in intelligence and responsibility--each pledged against

fusion--one for a century in servitude to the other, and freed at last

by a desolating war, the experiment sought by neither but approached by

both with doubt--these are the conditions. Under these, adverse at every

point, we are required to carry these two races in peace and honor to

the end.

Never, sir, has such a task been given to mortal stewardship. Never

before in this Republic has the white race divided on the rights of an

alien race. The red man was cut down as a weed because he hindered the

way of the American citizen. The yellow man was shut out of this

Republic because he is an alien, and inferior. The red man was owner of

the land--the yellow man was highly civilized and assimilable--but they

hindered both sections and are gone! But the black man, affecting but

one section, is clothed with every privilege of government and pinned to

the soil, and my people commanded to make good at any hazard, and at any

cost, his full and equal heirship of American privilege and prosperity.

It matters not that every other race has been routed or excluded without

rhyme or reason. It matters not that wherever the whites and the blacks

have touched, in any era or in any clime, there has been an

irreconcilable violence. It matters not that no two races, however

similar, have lived anywhere, at any time, on the same soil with equal

rights in peace! In spite of these things we are commanded to make good

this change of American policy which has not perhaps changed American

prejudice--to make certain here what has elsewhere been impossible

between whites and blacks--and to reverse, under the very worst

conditions, the universal verdict of racial history. And driven, sir, to

this superhuman task with an impatience that brooks no delay--a rigor

that accepts no excuse--and a suspicion that discourages frankness and

sincerity. We do not shrink from this trial. It is so interwoven with

our industrial fabric that we cannot disentangle it if we would--so

bound up in our honorable obligation to the world, that we would not if

we could. Can we solve it? The God who gave it into our hands, He alone

can know. But this the weakest and wisest of us do know: we cannot solve

it with less than your tolerant and patient sympathy--with less than the

knowledge that the blood that runs in your veins is our blood--and that,

when we have done our best, whether the issue be lost or won, we shall

feel your strong arms about us and hear the beating of your approving

hearts!

The resolute, clear-headed, broad-minded men of the South--the men whose

genius made glorious every page of the first seventy years of American

history--whose courage and fortitude you tested in five years of the

fiercest war--whose energy has made bricks without straw and spread

splendor amid the ashes of their war-wasted homes--these men wear this

problem in their hearts and brains, by day and by night. They realize,

as you cannot, what this problem means--what they owe to this kindly and

dependent race--the measure of their debt to the world in whose despite

they defended and maintained slavery. And though their feet are hindered

in its undergrowth, and their march cumbered with its burdens, they have

lost neither the patience from which comes clearness, nor the faith from

which comes courage. Nor, sir, when in passionate moments is disclosed

to them that vague and awful shadow, with its lurid abysses and its

crimson stains, into which I pray God they may never go, are they struck

with more of apprehension than is needed to complete their consecration!

Such is the temper of my people. But what of the problem itself? Mr.

President, we need not go one step further unless you concede right here

that the people I speak for are as honest, as sensible and as just as

your people, seeking as earnestly as you would in their place to rightly

solve the problem that touches them at every vital point. If you insist

that they are ruffians, blindly striving with bludgeon and shotgun to

plunder and oppress a race, then I shall sacrifice my self-respect and

tax your patience in vain. But admit that they are men of common sense

and common honesty, wisely modifying an environment they cannot wholly

disregard--guiding and controlling as best they can the vicious and

irresponsible of either race--compensating error with frankness, and

retrieving in patience what they lost in passion--and conscious all the

time that wrong means ruin--admit this, and we may reach an

understanding to-night.

The President of the United States, in his late message to Congress,

discussing the plea that the South should be left to solve this problem,

asks: "Are they at work upon it? What solution do they offer? When will

the black man cast a free ballot? When will he have the civil rights

that are his?" I shall not here protest against a partisanry that, for

the first time in our history, in time of peace, has stamped with the

great seal of our government a stigma upon the people of a great and

loyal section; though I gratefully remember that the great dead

soldier, who held the helm of State for the eight stormiest years of

reconstruction, never found need for such a step; and though there is no

personal sacrifice I would not make to remove this cruel and unjust

imputation on my people from the archives of my country! But, sir,

backed by a record, on every page of which is progress, I venture to

make earnest and respectful answer to the questions that are asked. We

give to the world this year a crop of 7,500,000 bales of cotton, worth

$450,000,000, and its cash equivalent in grain, grasses and fruit. This

enormous crop could not have come from the hands of sullen and

discontented labor. It comes from peaceful fields, in which laughter and

gossip rise above the hum of industry, and contentment runs with the

singing plough. It is claimed that this ignorant labor is defrauded of

its just hire, I present the tax books of Georgia, which show that the

negro twenty-five years ago a slave, has in Georgia alone $10,000,000 of

assessed property, worth twice that much. Does not that record honor him

and vindicate his neighbors?

What people, penniless, illiterate, has done so well? For every

Afro-American agitator, stirring the strife in which alone he prospers,

I can show you a thousand negroes, happy in their cabin homes, tilling

their own land by day, and at night taking from the lips of their

children the helpful message their State sends them from the schoolhouse

door. And the schoolhouse itself bears testimony. In Georgia we added

last year $250,000 to the school fund, making a total of more than

$1,000,000--and this in the face of prejudice not yet conquered--of the

fact that the whites are assessed for $368,000,000, the blacks for

$10,000,000, and yet forty-nine per cent of the beneficiaries are black

children; and in the doubt of many wise men if education helps, or can

help, our problem. Charleston, with her taxable values cut half in two

since 1860, pays more in proportion for public schools than Boston.

Although it is easier to give much out of much than little out of

little, the South, with one-seventh of the taxable property of the

country, with relatively larger debt, having received only one-twelfth

as much of public lands, and having back of its tax books none of the

$500,000,000 of bonds that enrich the North--and though it pays annually

$26,000,000 to your section as pensions--yet gives nearly one-sixth to

the public school fund. The South since 1865 has spent $122,000,000 in

education, and this year is pledged to $32,000,000 more for State and

city schools, although the blacks, paying one-thirtieth of the taxes,

get nearly one-half of the fund. Go into our fields and see whites and

blacks working side by side. On our buildings in the same squad. In our

shops at the same forge. Often the blacks crowd the whites from work, or

lower wages by their greater need and simpler habits, and yet are

permitted, because we want to bar them from no avenue in which their

feet are fitted to tread. They could not there be elected orators of

white universities, as they have been here, but they do enter there a

hundred useful trades that are closed against them here. We hold it

better and wiser to tend the weeds in the garden than to water the

exotic in the window.

In the South there are negro lawyers, teachers, editors, dentists,

doctors, preachers, multiplying with the increasing ability of their

race to support them. In villages and towns they have their military

companies equipped from the armories of the State, their churches and

societies built and supported largely by their neighbors. What is the

testimony of the courts? In penal legislation we have steadily reduced

felonies to misdemeanors, and have led the world in mitigating

punishment for crime, that we might save, as far as possible, this

dependent race from its own weakness. In our penitentiary record sixty

per cent of the prosecutors are negroes, and in every court the negro

criminal strikes the colored juror, that white men may judge his case.

In the North, one negro in every 185 is in jail--in the South, only one

in 446. In the North the percentage of negro prisoners is six times as

great as that of native whites; in the South, only four times as great.

If prejudice wrongs him in Southern courts, the record shows it to be

deeper in Northern courts. I assert here, and a bar as intelligent and

upright as the bar of Massachusetts will solemnly indorse my assertion,

that in the Southern courts, from highest to lowest, pleading for life,

liberty or property, the negro has distinct advantage because he is a

negro, apt to be overreached, oppressed--and that this advantage reaches

from the juror in making his verdict to the judge in measuring his

sentence.

Now, Mr. President, can it be seriously maintained that we are

terrorizing the people from whose willing hands comes every year

$1,000,000,000 of farm crops? Or have robbed a people who, twenty-five

years from unrewarded slavery, have amassed in one State $20,000,000 of

property? Or that we intend to oppress the people we are arming every

day? Or deceive them, when we are educating them to the utmost limit of

our ability? Or outlaw them, when we work side by side with them? Or

re-enslave them under legal forms, when for their benefit we have even

imprudently narrowed the limit of felonies and mitigated the severity of

law? My fellow-countrymen, as you yourselves may sometimes have to

appeal at the bar of human judgment for justice and for right, give to

my people to-night the fair and unanswerable conclusion of these

incontestable facts.

But it is claimed that under this fair seeming there is disorder and

violence. This I admit. And there will be until there is one ideal

community on earth after which we may pattern. But how widely is it

misjudged! It is hard to measure with exactness whatever touches the

negro. His helplessness, his isolation, his century of servitude,--these

dispose us to emphasize and magnify his wrongs. This disposition,

inflamed by prejudice and partisanry, has led to injustice and delusion.

Lawless men may ravage a county in Iowa and it is accepted as an

incident--in the South, a drunken row is declared to be the fixed habit

of the community. Regulators may whip vagabonds in Indiana by platoons

and it scarcely arrests attention--a chance collision in the South among

relatively the same classes is gravely accepted as evidence that one

race is destroying the other. We might as well claim that the Union was

ungrateful to the colored soldier who followed its flag because a Grand

Army post in Connecticut closed its doors to a negro veteran as for you

to give racial significance to every incident in the South, or to accept

exceptional grounds as the rule of our society. I am not one of those

who becloud American honor with the parade of the outrages of either

section, and belie American character by declaring them to be

significant and representative. I prefer to maintain that they are

neither, and stand for nothing but the passion and sin of our poor

fallen humanity. If society, like a machine, were no stronger than its

weakest part, I should despair of both sections. But, knowing that

society, sentient and responsible in every fiber, can mend and repair

until the whole has the strength of the best, I despair of neither.

These gentlemen who come with me here, knit into Georgia's busy life as

they are, never saw, I dare assert, an outrage committed on a negro! And

if they did, no one of you would be swifter to prevent or punish. It is

through them, and the men and women who think with them--making

nine-tenths of every Southern community--that these two races have been

carried thus far with less of violence than would have been possible

anywhere else on earth. And in their fairness and courage and

steadfastness--more than in all the laws that can be passed, or all the

bayonets that can be mustered--is the hope of our future.

When will the blacks cast a free ballot? When ignorance anywhere is not

dominated by the will of the intelligent; when the laborer anywhere

casts a vote unhindered by his boss; when the vote of the poor anywhere

is not influenced by the power of the rich; when the strong and the

steadfast do not everywhere control the suffrage of the weak and

shiftless--then, and not till then, will the ballot of the negro be

free. The white people of the South are banded, Mr. President, not in

prejudice against the blacks--not in sectional estrangement--not in the

hope of political dominion--but in a deep and abiding necessity. Here is

this vast ignorant and purchasable vote--clannish, credulous, impulsive,

and passionate--tempting every art of the demagogue, but insensible to

the appeal of the stateman. Wrongly started, in that it was led into

alienation from its neighbor and taught to rely on the protection of an

outside force, it cannot be merged and lost in the two great parties

through logical currents, for it lacks political conviction and even

that information on which conviction must be based. It must remain a

faction--strong enough in every community to control on the slightest

division of the whites. Under that division it becomes the prey of the

cunning and unscrupulous of both parties. Its credulity is imposed upon,

its patience inflamed, its cupidity tempted, its impulses

misdirected--and even its superstition made to play its part in a

campaign in which every interest of society is jeopardized and every

approach to the ballot-box debauched. It is against such campaigns as

this--the folly and the bitterness and the danger of which every

Southern community has drunk deeply--that the white people of the South

are banded together. Just as you in Massachusetts would be banded if

300,000 men, not one in a hundred able to read his ballot--banded in

race instinct, holding against you the memory of a century of slavery,

taught by your late conquerors to distrust and oppose you, had already

travestied legislation from your State House, and in every species of

folly or villainy had wasted your substance and exhausted your credit.

But admitting the right of the whites to unite against this tremendous

menace, we are challenged with the smallness of our vote. This has long

been flippantly charged to be evidence and has now been solemnly and

officially declared to be proof of political turpitude and baseness on

our part. Let us see. Virginia--a state now under fierce assault for

this alleged crime--cast in 1888 seventy-five per cent of her vote;

Massachusetts, the State in which I speak, sixty per cent of her vote.

Was it suppression in Virginia and natural causes in Massachusetts? Last

month Virginia cast sixty-nine per cent of her vote; and Massachusetts,

fighting in every district, cast only forty-nine per cent of hers. If

Virginia is condemned because thirty-one per cent of her vote was

silent, how shall this State escape, in which fifty-one per cent was

dumb? Let us enlarge this comparison. The sixteen Southern States in '88

cast sixty-seven per cent of their total vote--the six New England

States but sixty-three per cent of theirs. By what fair rule shall the

stigma be put upon one section while the other escapes? A congressional

election in New York last week, with the polling place in touch of every

voter, brought out only 6,000 votes of 28,000--and the lack of

opposition is assigned as the natural cause. In a district in my State,

in which an opposition speech has not been heard in ten years and the

polling places are miles apart--under the unfair reasoning of which my

section has been a constant victim--the small vote is charged to be

proof of forcible suppression. In Virginia an average majority of

12,000, unless hopeless division of the minority, was raised to 42,000;

in Iowa, in the same election, a majority of 32,000 was wiped out and

an opposition majority of 8,000 was established. The change of 40,000

votes in Iowa is accepted as political revolution--in Virginia an

increase of 30,000 on a safe majority is declared to be proof of

political fraud.

It is deplorable, sir, that in both sections a larger percentage of the

vote is not regularly cast, but more inexplicable that this should be so

in New England than in the South. What invites the negro to the

ballot-box? He knows that of all men it has promised him most and

yielded him least. His first appeal to suffrage was the promise of

"forty acres and a mule;" his second, the threat that Democratic success

meant his re-enslavement. Both have been proved false in his experience.

He looked for a home, and he got the Freedman's Bank. He fought under

promise of the loaf, and in victory was denied the crumbs. Discouraged

and deceived, he has realized at last that his best friends are his

neighbors with whom his lot is cast, and whose prosperity is bound up in

his--and that he has gained nothing in politics to compensate the loss

of their confidence and sympathy, that is at last his best and enduring

hope. And so, without leaders or organization--and lacking the resolute

heroism of my party friends in Vermont that make their hopeless march

over the hills a high and inspiring pilgrimage--he shrewdly measures the

occasional agitator, balances his little account with politics, touches

up his mule, and jogs down the furrow, letting the mad world wag as it

will!

The negro voter can never control in the South, and it would be well if

partisans at the North would understand this. I have seen the white

people of a State set about by black hosts until their fate seemed

sealed. But, sir, some brave men, banding them together, would rise as

Elisha rose in beleaguered Samaria, and, touching their eyes with faith,

bid them look abroad to see the very air "filled with the chariots of

Israel and the horsemen thereof." If there is any human force that

cannot be withstood, it is the power of the banded intelligence and

responsibility of a free community. Against it, numbers and corruption

cannot prevail. It cannot be forbidden in the law, or divorced in force.

It is the inalienable right of every free community--the just and

righteous safeguard against an ignorant or corrupt suffrage. It is on

this, sir, that we rely in the South. Not the cowardly menace of mask or

shotgun, but the peaceful majesty of intelligence and responsibility,

massed and unified for the protection of its homes and the preservation

of its liberty. That, sir, is our reliance and our hope, and against it

all the powers of earth shall not prevail. It is just as certain that

Virginia would come back to the unchallenged control of her white

race--that before the moral and material power of her people once more

unified, opposition would crumble until its last desperate leader was

left alone, vainly striving to rally his disordered hosts--as that

night should fade in the kindling glory of the sun. You may pass force

bills, but they will not avail. You may surrender your own liberties to

federal election law; you may submit, in fear of a necessity that does

not exist, that the very form of this government may be changed; you may

invite federal interference with the New England town meeting, that has

been for a hundred years the guarantee of local government in America;

this old State--which holds in its charter the boast that it "is a free

and independent commonwealth"--may deliver its election machinery into

the hands of the government it helped to create--but never, sir, will a

single State of this Union, North or South, be delivered again to the

control of an ignorant and inferior race. We wrested our state

governments from negro supremacy when the Federal drumbeat rolled closer

to the ballot-box, and Federal bayonets hedged it deeper about than will

ever again be permitted in this free government. But, sir, though the

cannon of this Republic thundered in every voting district in the South,

we still should find in the mercy of God the means and the courage to

prevent its reestablishment.

I regret, sir, that my section, hindered with this problem, stands in

seeming estrangement to the North. If, sir, any man will point out to me

a path down which the white people of the South, divided, may walk in

peace and honor, I will take that path, though I take it alone--for at

its end, and nowhere else, I fear, is to be found the full prosperity of

my section and the full restoration of this Union. But, sir, if the

negro had not been enfranchised the South would have been divided and

the Republic united. His enfranchisement--against which I enter no

protest--holds the South united and compact. What solution, then, can we

offer for the problem? Time alone can disclose it to us. We simply

report progress, and ask your patience. If the problem be solved at

all--and I firmly believe it will, though nowhere else has it been--it

will be solved by the people most deeply bound in interest, most deeply

pledged in honor to its solution. I had rather see my people render back

this question rightly solved than to see them gather all the spoils over

which faction has contended since Cataline conspired and Cæsar fought.

Meantime we treat the negro fairly, measuring to him justice in the

fulness the strong should give to the weak, and leading him in the

steadfast ways of citizenship, that he may no longer be the prey of the

unscrupulous and the sport of the thoughtless. We open to him every

pursuit in which he can prosper, and seek to broaden his training and

capacity. We seek to hold his confidence and friendship--and to pin him

to the soil with ownership, that he may catch in the fire of his own

hearthstone that sense of responsibility the shiftless can never know.

And we gather him into that alliance of intelligence and responsibility

that, though it now runs close to racial lines, welcomes the

responsible and intelligent of any race. By this course, confirmed in

our judgment, and justified in the progress already made, we hope to

progress slowly but surely to the end.

The love we feel for that race, you cannot measure nor comprehend. As I

attest it here, the spirit of my old black mammy, from her home up

there, looks down to bless, and through the tumult of this night steals

the sweet music of her croonings as thirty years ago she held me in her

black arms and led me smiling to sleep. This scene vanishes as I speak,

and I catch a vision of an old Southern home with its lofty pillars and

its white pigeons fluttering down through the golden air. I see women

with strained and anxious faces, and children alert yet helpless. I see

night come down with its dangers and its apprehensions, and in a big

homely room I feel on my tired head the touch of loving hands--now worn

and wrinkled, but fairer to me yet than the hands of mortal woman, and

stronger yet to lead me than the hands of mortal man--as they lay a

mother's blessing there, while at her knees--the truest altar I yet have

found--I thank God that she is safe in her sanctuary, because her

slaves, sentinel in the silent cabin, or guard at her chamber door, put

a black man's loyalty between her and danger.

I catch another vision. The crisis of battle--a soldier, struck,

staggering, fallen. I see a slave, scuffing through the smoke, winding

his black arms about the fallen form, reckless of hurtling

death--bending his trusty face to catch the words that tremble on the

stricken lips, so wrestling meantime with agony that he would lay down

his life in his master's stead. I see him by the weary bedside,

ministering with uncomplaining patience, praying with all his humble

heart that God will lift his master up, until death comes in mercy and

in honor to still the soldier's agony and seal the soldier's life. I see

him by the open grave--mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering for the

death of him who in life fought against his freedom. I see him, when the

mold is heaped and the great drama of his life is closed, turn away and

with downcast eyes and uncertain step start out into new and strange

fields, faltering, struggling, but moving on, until his shambling figure

is lost in the light of this better and brighter day. And from the grave

comes a voice, saying, "Follow him! put your arms about him in his need,

even as he put his about me. Be his friend as he was mine." And out into

this new world--strange to me as to him, dazzling, bewildering both--I

follow! And may God forget my people--when they forget these!

Whatever the future may hold for them, whether they plod along in the

servitude from which they have never been lifted since the Cyrenian was

laid hold upon by the Roman soldiers, and made to bear the cross of the

fainting Christ--whether they find homes again in Africa, and thus

hasten the prophecy of the psalmist, who said, "And suddenly Ethiopia

shall hold out her hands unto God"--whether forever dislocated and

separate, they remain a weak people, beset by stronger, and exist, as

the Turk, who lives in the jealousy rather than in the conscience of

Europe--or whether in this miraculous Republic they break through the

caste of twenty centuries and, belying universal history, reach the full

stature of citizenship, and in peace maintain it--we shall give them

uttermost justice and abiding friendship. And whatever we do, into

whatever seeming estrangement we may be driven, nothing shall disturb

the love we bear this Republic, or mitigate our consecration to its

service. I stand here, Mr. President, to profess no new loyalty. When

General Lee, whose heart was the temple of our hopes, and whose arm was

clothed with our strength, renewed his allegiance to this Government at

Appomattox, he spoke from a heart too great to be false, and he spoke

for every honest man from Maryland to Texas. From that day to this

Hamilcar has nowhere in the South sworn young Hannibal to hatred and

vengeance, but everywhere to loyalty and to love. Witness the veteran

standing at the base of a Confederate monument, above the graves of his

comrades, his empty sleeve tossing in the April wind, adjuring the young

men about him to serve as earnest and loyal citizens the Government

against which their fathers fought. This message, delivered from that

sacred presence, has gone home to the hearts of my fellows! And, sir, I

declare here, if physical courage be always equal to human aspiration,

that they would die, sir, if need be, to restore this Republic their

fathers fought to dissolve.

Such, Mr. President, is this problem as we see it, such is the temper in

which we approach it, such the progress made. What do we ask of you?

First, patience; out of this alone can come perfect work. Second,

confidence; in this alone can you judge fairly. Third, sympathy; in this

you can help us best. Fourth, give us your sons as hostages. When you

plant your capital in millions, send your sons that they may know how

true are our hearts and may help to swell the Caucasian current until it

can carry without danger this black infusion. Fifth, loyalty to the

Republic--for there is sectionalism in loyalty as in estrangement. This

hour little needs the loyalty that is loyal to one section and yet holds

the other in enduring suspicion and estrangement. Give us the broad and

perfect loyalty that loves and trusts Georgia alike with

Massachusetts--that knows no South, no North, no East, no West, but

endears with equal and patriotic love every foot of our soil, every

State of our Union.

A mighty duty, sir, and a mighty inspiration impels every one of us

to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whatever

divides. We, sir, are Americans--and we stand for human liberty! The

uplifting force of the American idea is under every throne on earth.

France, Brazil--these are our victories. To redeem the earth from

kingcraft and oppression--this is our mission! And we shall not fail.

God has sown in our soil the seed of His millennial harvest, and He will

not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until His full and perfect day

has come. Our history, sir, has been a constant and expanding miracle,

from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, all the way--aye, even from the hour

when from the voiceless and traceless ocean a new world rose to the

sight of the inspired sailor. As we approach the fourth centennial of

that stupendous day--when the old world will come to marvel and to learn

amid our gathered treasures--let us resolve to crown the miracles of our

past with the spectacle of a Republic, compact, united, indissoluble in

the bonds of love--loving from the Lakes to the Gulf--the wounds of war

healed in every heart as on every hill, serene and resplendent at the

summit of human achievement and earthly glory, blazing out the path and

making clear the way up which all the nations of the earth must come in

God's appointed time!

_WILLIAM McKINLEY_

LAST SPEECH

Delivered at the World's Fair, Buffalo, N.Y., on September 5, 1901, the

day before he was assassinated.

I am glad again to be in the city of Buffalo and exchange greetings with

her people, to whose generous hospitality I am not a stranger, and with

whose good will I have been repeatedly and signally honored. To-day I

have additional satisfaction in meeting and giving welcome to the

foreign representatives assembled here, whose presence and participation

in this Exposition have contributed in so marked a degree to its

interest and success. To the commissioners of the Dominion of Canada and

the British Colonies, the French Colonies, the Republics of Mexico and

of Central and South America, and the commissioners of Cuba and Porto

Rico, who share with us in this undertaking, we give the hand of

fellowship and felicitate with them upon the triumphs of art, science,

education and manufacture which the old has bequeathed to the new

century.

Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. They record the world's

advancement. They stimulate the energy, enterprise and intellect of the

people, and quicken human genius. They go into the home. They broaden

and brighten the daily life of the people. They open mighty storehouses

of information to the student. Every exposition, great or small, has

helped to some onward step.

Comparison of ideas is always educational and, as such, instructs the

brain and hand of man. Friendly rivalry follows, which is the spur to

industrial improvement, the inspiration to useful invention and to high

endeavor in all departments of human activity. It exacts a study of the

wants, comforts, and even the whims of the people, and recognizes the

efficacy of high quality and low prices to win their favor. The quest

for trade is an incentive to men of business to devise, invent, improve

and economize in the cost of production. Business life, whether among

ourselves, or with other peoples, is ever a sharp struggle for success.

It will be none the less in the future.

Without competition we would be clinging to the clumsy and antiquated

process of farming and manufacture and the methods of business of long

ago, and the twentieth would be no further advanced than the eighteenth

century. But tho commercial competitors we are, commercial enemies we

must not be. The Pan-American Exposition has done its work thoroughly,

presenting in its exhibits evidences of the highest skill and

illustrating the progress of the human family in the Western Hemisphere.

This portion of the earth has no cause for humiliation for the part it

has performed in the march of civilization. It has not accomplished

everything; far from it. It has simply done its best, and without vanity

or boastfulness, and recognizing the manifold achievements of others it

invites the friendly rivalry of all the powers in the peaceful pursuits

of trade and commerce, and will cooperate with all in advancing the

highest and best interests of humanity. The wisdom and energy of all the

nations are none too great for the world work. The success of art,

science, industry and invention is an international asset and a common

glory.

After all, how near one to the other is every part of the world. Modern

inventions have brought into close relation widely separated peoples and

make them better acquainted. Geographic and political divisions will

continue to exist, but distances have been effaced. Swift ships and fast

trains are becoming cosmopolitan. They invade fields which a few years

ago were impenetrable. The world's products are exchanged as never

before and with increasing transportation facilities come increasing

knowledge and larger trade. Prices are fixed with mathematical precision

by supply and demand. The world's selling prices are regulated by market

and crop reports. We travel greater distances in a shorter space of time

and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by the fathers. Isolation is

no longer possible or desirable. The same important news is read, tho in

different languages, the same day in all Christendom.

The telegraph keeps us advised of what is occurring everywhere, and the

Press foreshadows, with more or less accuracy, the plans and purposes of

the nations. Market prices of products and of securities are hourly

known in every commercial mart, and the investments of the people extend

beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the

earth. Vast transactions are conducted and international exchanges are

made by the tick of the cable. Every event of interest is immediately

bulletined. The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid

transit, are of recent origin, and are only made possible by the genius

of the inventor and the courage of the investor. It took a special

messenger of the government, with every facility known at the time for

rapid travel, nineteen days to go from the City of Washington to New

Orleans with a message to General Jackson that the war with England had

ceased and a treaty of peace had been signed. How different now! We

reached General Miles, in Porto Rico, and he was able through the

military telegraph to stop his army on the firing line with the message

that the United States and Spain had signed a protocol suspending

hostilities. We knew almost instanter of the first shots fired at

Santiago, and the subsequent surrender of the Spanish forces was known

at Washington within less than an hour of its consummation. The first

ship of Cervera's fleet had hardly emerged from that historic harbor

when the fact was flashed to our Capitol, and the swift destruction that

followed was announced immediately through the wonderful medium of

telegraphy.

So accustomed are we to safe and easy communication with distant lands

that its temporary interruption, even in ordinary times, results in loss

and inconvenience. We shall never forget the days of anxious waiting and

suspense when no information was permitted to be sent from Pekin, and

the diplomatic representatives of the nations in China, cut off from all

communication, inside and outside of the walled capital, were surrounded

by an angry and misguided mob that threatened their lives; nor the joy

that thrilled the world when a single message from the government of the

United States brought through our minister the first news of the safety

of the besieged diplomats.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not a mile of steam

railroad on the globe; now there are enough miles to make its circuit

many times. Then there was not a line of electric telegraph; now we have

a vast mileage traversing all lands and seas. God and man have linked

the nations together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other.

And as we are brought more and more in touch with each other, the less

occasion is there for misunderstandings, and the stronger the

disposition, when we have differences, to adjust them in the court of

arbitration, which is the noblest forum for the settlement of

international disputes.

My fellow citizens, trade statistics indicate that this country is in a

state of unexampled prosperity. The figures are almost appalling. They

show that we are utilizing our fields and forests and mines, and that we

are furnishing profitable employment to the millions of workingmen

throughout the United States, bringing comfort and happiness to their

homes, and making it possible to lay by savings for old age and

disability. That all the people are participating in this great

prosperity is seen in every American community and shown by the enormous

and unprecedented deposits in our savings banks. Our duty in the care

and security of these deposits and their safe investment demands the

highest integrity and the best business capacity of those in charge of

these depositories of the people's earnings.

We have a vast and intricate business, built up through years of toil

and struggle in which every part of the country has its stake, which

will not permit of either neglect or of undue selfishness. No narrow,

sordid policy will subserve it. The greatest skill and wisdom on the

part of manufacturers and producers will be required to hold and

increase it. Our industrial enterprises, which have grown to such great

proportions, affect the homes and occupations of the people and the

welfare of the country. Our capacity to produce has developed so

enormously and our products have so multiplied that the problem of more

markets requires our urgent and immediate attention. Only a broad and

enlightened policy will keep what we have. No other policy will get

more. In these times of marvelous business energy and gain we ought to

be looking to the future, strengthening the weak places in our

industrial and commercial systems, that we may be ready for any storm or

strain.

By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our home

production we shall extend the outlets for our increasing surplus. A

system which provides a mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly

essential to the continued and healthful growth of our export trade. We

must not repose in the fancied security that we can forever sell

everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing were possible it

would not be best for us or for those with whom we deal. We should take

from our customers such of their products as we can use without harm to

our industries and labor. Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our

wonderful industrial development under the domestic policy now firmly

established.

What we produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad.

The excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet, and we should sell

everywhere we can and buy wherever the buying will enlarge our sales and

productions, and thereby make a greater demand for home labor.

The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and

commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A

policy of good will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals.

Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times;

measures of retaliation are not. If, perchance, some of our tariffs are

no longer needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries

at home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our

markets abroad? Then, too, we have inadequate steamship service. New

lines of steamships have already been put in commission between the

Pacific coast ports of the United States and those on the western coasts

of Mexico and Central and South America. These should be followed up

with direct steamship lines between the western coast of the United

States and South American ports. One of the needs of the times is direct

commercial lines from our vast fields of production to the fields of

consumption that we have but barely touched. Next in advantage to having

the thing to sell is to have the conveyance to carry it to the buyer. We

must encourage our merchant marine. We must have more ships. They must

be under the American flag; built and manned and owned by Americans.

These will not only be profitable in a commercial sense; they will be

messengers of peace and amity wherever they go.

We must build the Isthmian canal, which will unite the two oceans and

give a straight line of water communication with the western coasts of

Central and South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific

cable can not be longer postponed. In the furtherance of these objects

of national interest and concern you are performing an important part.

This Exposition would have touched the heart of that American statesman

whose mind was ever alert and thought ever constant for a larger

commerce and a truer fraternity of the republics of the New World. His

broad American spirit is felt and manifested here. He needs no

identification to an assemblage of Americans anywhere, for the name of

Blaine is inseparably associated with the Pan-American movement which

finds here practical and substantial expression, and which we all hope

will be firmly advanced by the Pan-American Congress that assembles this

autumn in the capital of Mexico. The good work will go on. It can not be

stopped. Those buildings will disappear; this creation of art and beauty

and industry will perish from sight, but their influence will remain to

"make it live beyond its too short living with praises and

thanksgiving." Who can tell the new thoughts that have been awakened,

the ambitions fired and the high achievements that will be wrought

through this Exposition?

Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not

conflict; and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace,

not those of war. We hope that all who are represented here may be moved

to higher and nobler efforts for their own and the world's good, and

that out of this city may come not only greater commerce and trade for

us all, but, more essential than these, relations of mutual respect,

confidence and friendship which will deepen and endure. Our earnest

prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness and

peace to all our neighbors, and like blessings to all the peoples and

powers of earth.

_JOHN HAY_

TRIBUTE TO MCKINLEY

From his memorial address at a joint session of the Senate and House of

Representatives on February 27, 1903.

For the third time the Congress of the United States are assembled to

commemorate the life and the death of a president slain by the hand of

an assassin. The attention of the future historian will be attracted to

the features which reappear with startling sameness in all three of

these awful crimes: the uselessness, the utter lack of consequence of

the act; the obscurity, the insignificance of the criminal; the

blamelessness--so far as in our sphere of existence the best of men may

be held blameless--of the victim. Not one of our murdered presidents had

an enemy in the world; they were all of such preeminent purity of life

that no pretext could be given for the attack of passional crime; they

were all men of democratic instincts, who could never have offended the

most jealous advocates of equity; they were of kindly and generous

nature, to whom wrong or injustice was impossible; of moderate fortune,

whose slender means nobody could envy. They were men of austere virtue,

of tender heart, of eminent abilities, which they had devoted with

single minds to the good of the Republic. If ever men walked before God

and man without blame, it was these three rulers of our people. The only

temptation to attack their lives offered was their gentle radiance--to

eyes hating the light, that was offense enough.

The stupid uselessness of such an infamy affronts the common sense of

the world. One can conceive how the death of a dictator may change the

political conditions of an empire; how the extinction of a narrowing

line of kings may bring in an alien dynasty. But in a well-ordered

Republic like ours the ruler may fall, but the State feels no tremor.

Our beloved and revered leader is gone--but the natural process of our

laws provides us a successor, identical in purpose and ideals, nourished

by the same teachings, inspired by the same principles, pledged by

tender affection as well as by high loyalty to carry to completion the

immense task committed to his hands, and to smite with iron severity

every manifestation of that hideous crime which his mild predecessor,

with his dying breath, forgave. The sayings of celestial wisdom have no

date; the words that reach us, over two thousand years, out of the

darkest hour of gloom the world has ever known, are true to life to-day:

"They know not what they do." The blow struck at our dear friend and

ruler was as deadly as blind hate could make it; but the blow struck at

anarchy was deadlier still.

How many countries can join with us in the community of a kindred

sorrow! I will not speak of those distant regions where assassination

enters into the daily life of government. But among the nations bound to

us by the ties of familiar intercourse--who can forget that wise and

mild autocrat who had earned the proud title of the liberator? that

enlightened and magnanimous citizen whom France still mourns? that brave

and chivalrous king of Italy who only lived for his people? and, saddest

of all, that lovely and sorrowing empress, whose harmless life could

hardly have excited the animosity of a demon? Against that devilish

spirit nothing avails,--neither virtue nor patriotism, nor age nor

youth, nor conscience nor pity. We can not even say that education is a

sufficient safeguard against this baleful evil,--for most of the

wretches whose crimes have so shocked humanity in recent years were men

not unlettered, who have gone from the common schools, through murder to

the scaffold.

The life of William McKinley was, from his birth to his death, typically

American. There is no environment, I should say, anywhere else in the

world which could produce just such a character. He was born into that

way of life which elsewhere is called the middle class, but which in

this country is so nearly universal as to make of other classes an

almost negligible quantity. He was neither rich nor poor, neither proud

nor humble; he knew no hunger he was not sure of satisfying, no luxury

which could enervate mind or body. His parents were sober, God-fearing

people; intelligent and upright, without pretension and without

humility. He grew up in the company of boys like himself, wholesome,

honest, self-respecting. They looked down on nobody; they never felt it

possible they could be looked down upon. Their houses were the homes of

probity, piety, patriotism. They learned in the admirable school readers

of fifty years ago the lessons of heroic and splendid life which have

come down from the past. They read in their weekly newspapers the story

of the world's progress, in which they were eager to take part, and of

the sins and wrongs of civilization with which they burned to do battle.

It was a serious and thoughtful time. The boys of that day felt dimly,

but deeply, that days of sharp struggle and high achievement were before

them. They looked at life with the wondering yet resolute eyes of a

young esquire in his vigil of arms. They felt a time was coming when to

them should be addressed the stern admonition of the Apostle, "Quit you

like men; be strong."

The men who are living to-day and were young in 1860 will never forget

the glory and glamour that filled the earth and the sky when the long

twilight of doubt and uncertainty was ending and the time for action had

come. A speech by Abraham Lincoln was an event not only of high moral

significance, but of far-reaching importance; the drilling of a militia

company by Ellsworth attracted national attention; the fluttering of the

flag in the clear sky drew tears from the eyes of young men.

Patriotism, which had been a rhetorical expression, became a passionate

emotion, in which instinct, logic and feeling were fused. The country

was worth saving; it could be saved only by fire; no sacrifice was too

great; the young men of the country were ready for the sacrifice; come

weal, come woe, they were ready.

At seventeen years of age William McKinley heard this summons of his

country. He was the sort of youth to whom a military life in ordinary

times would possess no attractions. His nature was far different from

that of the ordinary soldier. He had other dreams of life, its prizes

and pleasures, than that of marches and battles. But to his mind there

was no choice or question. The banner floating in the morning breeze was

the beckoning gesture of his country. The thrilling notes of the trumpet

called him--him and none other--into the ranks. His portrait in his

first uniform is familiar to you all--the short, stocky figure; the

quiet, thoughtful face; the deep, dark eyes. It is the face of a lad who

could not stay at home when he thought he was needed in the field. He

was of the stuff of which good soldiers are made. Had he been ten years

older he would have entered at the head of a company and come out at the

head of a division. But he did what he could. He enlisted as a private;

he learned to obey. His serious, sensible ways, his prompt, alert

efficiency soon attracted the attention of his superiors. He was so

faithful in little things that they gave him more and more to do. He was

untiring in camp and on the march; swift, cool and fearless in fight. He

left the army with field rank when the war ended, brevetted by President

Lincoln for gallantry in battle.

In coming years when men seek to draw the moral of our great Civil War,

nothing will seem to them so admirable in all the history of our two

magnificent armies as the way in which the war came to a close. When the

Confederate army saw the time had come, they acknowledged the pitiless

logic of facts and ceased fighting. When the army of the Union saw it

was no longer needed, without a murmur or question, making no terms,

asking no return, in the flush of victory and fulness of might, it laid

down its arms and melted back into the mass of peaceful citizens. There

is no event since the nation was born which has so proved its solid

capacity for self-government. Both sections share equally in that crown

of glory. They had held a debate of incomparable importance and had

fought it out with equal energy. A conclusion had been reached--and it

is to the everlasting honor of both sides that they each knew when the

war was over and the hour of a lasting peace had struck. We may admire

the desperate daring of others who prefer annihilation to compromise,

but the palm of common sense, and, I will say, of enlightened

patriotism, belongs to the men like Grant and Lee, who knew when they

had fought enough for honor and for country.

So it came naturally about that in 1876--the beginning of the second

century of the Republic--he began, by an election to Congress, his

political career. Thereafter for fourteen years this chamber was his

home. I use the word advisedly. Nowhere in the world was he so in

harmony with his environment as here; nowhere else did his mind work

with such full consciousness of its powers. The air of debate was native

to him; here he drank delight of battle with his peers. In after days,

when he drove by this stately pile, or when on rare occasions his duty

called him here, he greeted his old haunts with the affectionate zest of

a child of the house; during all the last ten years of his life, filled

as they were with activity and glory, he never ceased to be homesick for

this hall. When he came to the presidency, there was not a day when his

congressional service was not of use to him. Probably no other president

has been in such full and cordial communion with Congress, if we may

except Lincoln alone. McKinley knew the legislative body thoroughly, its

composition, its methods, its habit of thought. He had the profoundest

respect for its authority and an inflexible belief in the ultimate

rectitude of its purposes. Our history shows how surely an executive

courts disaster and ruin by assuming an attitude of hostility or

distrust to the Legislature; and, on the other hand, McKinley's frank

and sincere trust and confidence in Congress were repaid by prompt and

loyal support and coöperation. During his entire term of office this

mutual trust and regard--so essential to the public welfare--was never

shadowed by a single cloud.

When he came to the presidency he confronted a situation of the utmost

difficulty, which might well have appalled a man of less serene and

tranquil self-confidence. There had been a state of profound commercial

and industrial depression from which his friends had said his election

would relieve the country. Our relations with the outside world left

much to be desired. The feeling between the Northern and Southern

sections of the Union was lacking in the cordiality which was necessary

to the welfare of both. Hawaii had asked for annexation and had been

rejected by the preceding administration. There was a state of things in

the Caribbean which could not permanently endure. Our neighbor's house

was on fire, and there were grave doubts as to our rights and duties in

the premises. A man either weak or rash, either irresolute or

headstrong, might have brought ruin on himself and incalculable harm to

the country.

The least desirable form of glory to a man of his habitual mood and

temper--that of successful war--was nevertheless conferred upon him by

uncontrollable events. He felt it must come; he deplored its necessity;

he strained almost to breaking his relations with his friends, in order,

first to prevent and then to postpone it to the latest possible moment.

But when the die was cast, he labored with the utmost energy and ardor,

and with an intelligence in military matters which showed how much of

the soldier still survived in the mature statesman, to push forward the

war to a decisive close. War was an anguish to him; he wanted it short

and conclusive. His merciful zeal communicated itself to his

subordinates, and the war, so long dreaded, whose consequences were so

momentous, ended in a hundred days.

Mr. McKinley was reelected by an overwhelming majority. There had been

little doubt of the result among well-informed people, but when it was

known, a profound feeling of relief and renewal of trust were evident

among the leaders of capital and industry, not only in this country, but

everywhere. They felt that the immediate future was secure, and that

trade and commerce might safely push forward in every field of effort

and enterprise.

He felt that the harvest time was come, to garner in the fruits of so

much planting and culture, and he was determined that nothing he might

do or say should be liable to the reproach of a personal interest. Let

us say frankly he was a party man; he believed the policies advocated by

him and his friends counted for much in the country's progress and

prosperity. He hoped in his second term to accomplish substantial

results in the development and affirmation of those policies. I spent a

day with him shortly before he started on his fateful journey to

Buffalo. Never had I seen him higher in hope and patriotic confidence.

He was gratified to the heart that we had arranged a treaty which gave

us a free hand in the Isthmus. In fancy he saw the canal already built

and the argosies of the world passing through it in peace and amity. He

saw in the immense evolution of American trade the fulfilment of all his

dreams, the reward of all his labors. He was, I need not say, an ardent

protectionist, never more sincere and devoted than during those last

days of his life. He regarded reciprocity as the bulwark of

protection--not a breach, but a fulfilment of the law. The treaties

which for four years had been preparing under his personal supervision

he regarded as ancillary to the general scheme. He was opposed to any

revolutionary plan of change in the existing legislation; he was careful

to point out that everything he had done was in faithful compliance with

the law itself.

In that mood of high hope, of generous expectation, he went to Buffalo,

and there, on the threshold of eternity, he delivered that memorable

speech, worthy for its loftiness of tone, its blameless morality, its

breadth of view, to be regarded as his testament to the nation. Through

all his pride of country and his joy of its success runs the note of

solemn warning, as in Kipling's noble hymn, "Lest We Forget."

The next day sped the bolt of doom, and for a week after--in an agony of

dread, broken by illusive glimpses of hope that our prayers might be

answered--the nation waited for the end. Nothing in the glorious life

we saw gradually waning was more admirable and exemplary than its close.

The gentle humanity of his words when he saw his assailant in danger of

summary vengeance, "Do not let them hurt him;" his chivalrous care that

the news should be broken gently to his wife; the fine courtesy with

which he apologized for the damage which his death would bring to the

great Exhibition; and the heroic resignation of his final words, "It is

God's way; His will, not ours, be done," were all the instinctive

expressions of a nature so lofty and so pure that pride in its nobility

at once softened and enhanced the nation's sense of loss. The Republic

grieved over such a son,--but is proud forever of having produced him.

After all, in spite of its tragic ending, his life was extraordinarily

happy. He had, all his days, troops of friends, the cheer of fame and

fruitful labor; and he became at last,

"On fortune's crowning slope,

The pillar of a people's hope,

The center of a world's desire."

_WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN_ THE PRINCE OF PEACE[39] (1894)

I offer no apology for speaking upon a religious theme, for it is the

most universal of all themes. I am interested in the science of

government, but I am interested more in religion than in government. I

enjoy making a political speech--I have made a good many and shall make

more--but I would rather speak on religion than on politics. I commenced

speaking on the stump when I was only twenty, but I commenced speaking

in the church six years earlier--and I shall be in the church even after

I am put of politics. I feel sure of my ground when I make a political

speech, but I feel even more certain of my ground when I make a

religious speech. If I addrest you upon the subject of law I might

interest the lawyers; if I discust the science of medicine I might

interest the physicians; in like manner merchants might be interested in

comments on commerce, and farmers in matters pertaining to agriculture;

but no one of these subjects appeals to all. Even the science of

government, tho broader than any profession or occupation, does not

embrace the whole sum of life, and those who think upon it differ so

among themselves that I could not speak upon the subject so as to please

a part of the audience without displeasing others. While to me the

science of government is intensely absorbing, I recognize that the most

important things in life lie outside of the realm of government and that

more depends upon what the individual does for himself than upon what

the government does or can do for him. Men can be miserable under the

best government and they can be happy under the worst government.

Government affects but a part of the life which we live here and does

not deal at all with the life beyond, while religion touches the

infinite circle of existence as well as the small arc of that circle

which we spend on earth. No greater theme, therefore, can engage our

attention. If I discuss questions of government I must secure the

coöperation of a majority before I can put my ideas into practise, but

if, in speaking on religion, I can touch one human heart for good, I

have not spoken in vain no matter how large the majority may be against

me.

Man is a religious being; the heart instinctively seeks for a God.

Whether he worships on the banks of the Ganges, prays with his face

upturned to the sun, kneels toward Mecca or, regarding all space as a

temple, communes with the Heavenly Father according to the Christian

creed, man is essentially devout.

There are honest doubters whose sincerity we recognize and respect, but

occasionally I find young men who think it smart to be skeptical; they

talk as if it were an evidence of larger intelligence to scoff at creeds

and to refuse to connect themselves with churches. They call themselves

"Liberal," as if a Christian were narrow minded. Some go so far as to

assert that the "advanced thought of the world" has discarded the idea

that there is a God. To these young men I desire to address myself.

Even some older people profess to regard religion as a superstition,

pardonable in the ignorant but unworthy of the educated. Those who hold

this view look down with mild contempt upon such as give to religion a

definite place in their thoughts and lives. They assume an intellectual

superiority and often take little pains to conceal the assumption.

Tolstoy administers to the "cultured crowd" (the words quoted are his) a

severe rebuke when he declares that the religious sentiment rests not

upon a superstitious fear of the invisible forces of nature, but upon

man's consciousness of his finiteness amid an infinite universe and of

his sinfulness; and this consciousness, the great philosopher adds, man

can never outgrow. Tolstoy is right; man recognizes how limited are his

own powers and how vast is the universe, and he leans upon the arm that

_is_ stronger than his. Man feels the weight of his sins and looks for

One who is sinless.

Religion has been defined by Tolstoy as the relation which man fixes

between himself and his God, and morality as the outward manifestation

of this inward relation. Every one, by the time he reaches maturity, has

fixt some relation between himself and God and no material change in

this relation can take place without a revolution in the man, for this

relation is the most potent influence that acts upon a human life.

Religion is the foundation of morality in the individual and in the

group of individuals. Materialists have attempted to build up a system

of morality upon the basis of enlightened self-interest. They would have

man figure out by mathematics that it pays him to abstain from

wrong-doing; they would even inject an element of selfishness into

altruism, but the moral system elaborated by the materialists has

several defects. First, its virtues are borrowed from moral systems

based upon religion. All those who are intelligent enough to discuss a

system of morality are so saturated with the morals derived from systems

resting upon religion that they cannot frame a system resting upon

reason alone. Second, as it rests upon argument rather than upon

authority, the young are not in a position to accept or reject. Our laws

do not permit a young man to dispose of real estate until he is

twenty-one. Why this restraint? Because his reason is not mature; and

yet a man's life is largely moulded by the environment of his youth.

Third, one never knows just how much of his decision is due to reason

and how much is due to passion or to selfish interest. Passion can

dethrone the reason--we recognize this in our criminal laws. We also

recognize the bias of self-interest when we exclude from the jury every

man, no matter how reasonable or upright he may be, who has a pecuniary

interest in the result of the trial. And, fourth, one whose morality

rests upon a nice calculation of benefits to be secured spends time

figuring that he should spend in action. Those who keep a book account

of their good deeds seldom do enough good to justify keeping books. A

noble life cannot be built upon an arithmetic; it must be rather like

the spring that pours forth constantly of that which refreshes and

invigorates.

Morality is the power of endurance in man; and a religion which teaches

personal responsibility to God gives strength to morality. There is a

powerful restraining influence in the belief that an all-seeing eye

scrutinizes every thought and word and act of the individual.

There is wide difference between the man who is trying to conform his

life to a standard of morality about him and the man who seeks to make

his life approximate to a divine standard. The former attempts to live

up to the standard, if it is above him, and down to it, if it is below

him--and if he is doing right only when others are looking he is sure to

find a time when he thinks he is unobserved, and then he takes a

vacation and falls. One needs the inner strength which comes with the

conscious presence of a personal God. If those who are thus fortified

sometimes yield to temptation, how helpless and hopeless must those be

who rely upon their own strength alone!

There are difficulties to be encountered in religion, but there are

difficulties to be encountered everywhere. If Christians sometimes have

doubts and fears, unbelievers have more doubts and greater fears. I

passed through a period of skepticism when I was in college and I have

been glad ever since that I became a member of the church before I left

home for college, for it helped me during those trying days. And the

college days cover the dangerous period in the young man's life; he is

just coming into possession of his powers, and feels stronger than he

ever feels afterward--and he thinks he knows more than he ever does

know.

It was at this period that I became confused by the different theories

of creation. But I examined these theories and found that they all

assumed something to begin with. You can test this for yourselves.

The nebular hypothesis, for instance, assumes that matter and force

existed--matter in particles infinitely fine and each particle

separated from every other particle by space infinitely great.

Beginning with this assumption, force working on matter--according

to this hypothesis--created a universe. Well, I have a right to assume,

and I prefer to assume, a Designer back of the design--a Creator back

of the creation; and no matter how long you draw out the process of

creation, so long as God stands back of it you cannot shake my faith in

Jehovah. In Genesis it is written that, in the beginning, God created

the heavens and the earth, and I can stand on that proposition until I

find some theory of creation that goes farther back than "the beginning."

We must begin with something--we must start somewhere--and the Christian

begins with God.

I do not carry the doctrine of evolution as far as some do; I am not yet

convinced that man is a lineal descendant of the lower animals. I do not

mean to find fault with you if you want to accept the theory; all I mean

to say is that while you may trace your ancestry back to the monkey if

you find pleasure or pride in doing so, you shall not connect me with

your family tree without more evidence than has yet been produced. I

object to the theory for several reasons. First, it is a dangerous

theory. If a man links himself in generations with the monkey, it then

becomes an important question whether he is going toward him or coming

from him--and I have seen them going in both directions. I do not know

of any argument that can be used to prove that man is an improved monkey

that may not be used just as well to prove that the monkey is a

degenerate man, and the latter theory is more plausible than the former.

It is true that man, in some physical characteristics resembles the

beast, but man has a mind as well as a body, and a soul as well as a

mind. The mind is greater than the body and the soul is greater than the

mind, and I object to having man's pedigree traced on one-third of him

only--and that the lowest third. Fairbairn, in his "Philosophy of

Christianity," lays down a sound proposition when he says that it is not

sufficient to explain man as an animal; that it is necessary to explain

man in history--and the Darwinian theory does not do this. The ape,

according to this theory, is older than man and yet the ape is still an

ape while man is the author of the marvelous civilization which we see

about us.

One does not escape from mystery, however, by accepting this theory, for

it does not explain the origin of life. When the follower of Darwin has

traced the germ of life back to the lowest form in which it appears--and

to follow him one must exercise more faith than religion calls for--he

finds that scientists differ. Those who reject the idea of creation are

divided into two schools, some believing that the first germ of life

came from another planet and others holding that it was the result of

spontaneous generation. Each school answers the arguments advanced by

the other, and as they cannot agree with each other, I am not compelled

to agree with either.

If I were compelled to accept one of these theories I would prefer the

first, for if we can chase the germ of life off this planet and get it

out into space we can guess the rest of the way and no one can

contradict us, but if we accept the doctrine of spontaneous generation

we cannot explain why spontaneous generation ceased to act after the

first germ was created.

Go back as far as we may, we cannot escape from the creative act, and it

is just as easy for me to believe that God created man _as he is_ as to

believe that, millions of years ago, He created a germ of life and

endowed it with power to develop into all that we see to-day. I object

to the Darwinian theory, until more conclusive proof is produced,

because I fear we shall lose the consciousness of God's presence in our

daily life, if we must accept the theory that through all the ages no

spiritual force has touched the life of man or shaped the destiny of

nations.

But there is another objection. The Darwinian theory represents man as

reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate--the

merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak. If

this is the law of our development then, if there is any logic that can

bind the human mind, we shall turn backward toward the beast in

proportion as we substitute the law of love. I prefer to believe that

love rather than hatred is the law of development. How can hatred be the

law of development when nations have advanced in proportion as they have

departed from that law and adopted the law of love?

But, I repeat, while I do not accept the Darwinian theory I shall not

quarrel with you about it; I only refer to it to remind you that it does

not solve the mystery of life or explain human progress. I fear that

some have accepted it in the hope of escaping from the miracle, but why

should the miracle frighten us? And yet I am inclined to think that it

is one of the test questions with the Christian.

Christ cannot be separated from the miraculous; His birth, His

ministrations, and His resurrection, all involve the miraculous, and the

change which His religion works in the human heart is a continuing

miracle. Eliminate the miracles and Christ becomes merely a human being

and His gospel is stript of divine authority.

The miracle raises two questions: "Can God perform a miracle?" and,

"Would He want to?" The first is easy to answer. A God who can make a

world can do anything He wants to do with it. The power to perform

miracles is necessarily implied in the power to create. But would God

_want_ to perform a miracle?--this is the question which has given most

of the trouble. The more I have considered it the less inclined I am to

answer in the negative. To say that God _would not_ perform a miracle is

to assume a more intimate knowledge of God's plans and purposes than I

can claim to have. I will not deny that God does perform a miracle or

may perform one merely because I do not know how or why He does it. I

find it so difficult to decide each day what God wants done now that I

am not presumptuous enough to attempt to declare what God might have

wanted to do thousands of years ago. The fact that we are constantly

learning of the existence of new forces suggests the possibility that

God may operate through forces yet unknown to us, and the mysteries with

which we deal every day warn me that faith is as necessary as sight. Who

would have credited a century ago the stories that are now told of the

wonder-working electricity? For ages man had known the lightning, but

only to fear it; now, this invisible current is generated by a man-made

machine, imprisoned in a man-made wire and made to do the bidding of

man. We are even able to dispense with the wire and hurl words through

space, and the X-ray has enabled us to look through substances which

were supposed, until recently, to exclude all light. The miracle is not

more mysterious than many of the things with which man now deals--it is

simply different. The miraculous birth of Christ is not more mysterious

than any other conception--it is simply unlike it; nor is the

resurrection of Christ more mysterious than the myriad resurrections

which mark each annual seed-time.

It is sometimes said that God could not suspend one of His laws without

stopping the universe, but do we not suspend or overcome the law of

gravitation every day? Every time we move a foot or lift a weight we

temporarily overcome one of the most universal of natural laws and yet

the world is not disturbed.

Science has taught us so many things that we are tempted to conclude

that we know everything, but there is really a great unknown which is

still unexplored and that which we have learned ought to increase our

reverence rather than our egotism. Science has disclosed some of the

machinery of the universe, but science has not yet revealed to us the

great secret--the secret of life. It is to be found in every blade of

grass, in every insect, in every bird and in every animal, as well as in

man. Six thousand years of recorded history and yet we know no more

about the secret of life than they knew in the beginning. We live, we

plan; we have our hopes, our fears; and yet in a moment a change may

come over anyone of us and this body will become a mass of lifeless

clay. What is it that, having, we live, and having not, we are as the

clod? The progress of the race and the civilization which we now behold

are the work of men and women who have not yet solved the mystery of

their own lives.

And our food, must we understand it before we eat it? If we refused to

eat anything until we could understand the mystery of its growth, we

would die of starvation. But mystery does not bother us in the

dining-room; it is only in the church that it is a stumbling block.

I was eating a piece of watermelon some months ago and was struck with

its beauty. I took some of the seeds and dried them and weighed them,

and found that it would require some five thousand seeds to weigh a

pound; and then I applied mathematics to that forty-pound melon. One of

these seeds, put into the ground, when warmed by the sun and moistened

by the rain, takes off its coat and goes to work; it gathers from

somewhere two hundred thousand times its own weight, and forcing this

raw material through a tiny stem, constructs a watermelon. It ornaments

the outside with a covering of green; inside the green it puts a layer

of white, and within the white a core of red, and all through the red it

scatters seeds, each one capable of continuing the work of reproduction.

Where does that little seed get its tremendous power? Where does it find

its coloring matter? How does it collect its flavoring extract? How does

it build a watermelon? Until you can explain a watermelon, do not be too

sure that you can set limits to the power of the Almighty and say just

what He would do or how He would do it. I cannot explain the watermelon,

but I eat it and enjoy it.

The egg is the most universal of foods and its use dates from the

beginning, but what is more mysterious than an egg? When an egg is fresh

it is an important article of merchandise; a hen can destroy its market

value in a week's time, but in two weeks more she can bring forth from

it what man could not find in it. We eat eggs, but we cannot explain an

egg.

Water has been used from the birth of man; we learned after it had been

used for ages that it is merely a mixture of gases, but it is far more

important that we have water to drink than that we know that it is not

water.

Everything that grows tells a like story of infinite power. Why should I

deny that a divine hand fed a multitude with a few loaves and fishes

when I see hundreds of millions fed every year by a hand which converts

the seeds scattered over the field into an abundant harvest? We know

that food can be multiplied in a few months' time; shall we deny the

power of the Creator to eliminate the element of time, when we have gone

so far in eliminating the element of space? Who am I that I should

attempt to measure the arm of the Almighty with my puny arm, or to

measure the brain of the Infinite with my finite mind? Who am I that I

should attempt to put metes and bounds to the power of the Creator?

But there is something even more wonderful still--the mysterious change

that takes place in the human heart when the man begins to hate the

things he loved and to love the things he hated--the marvelous

transformation that takes place in the man who, before the change, would

have sacrificed a world for his own advancement but who, after the

change, would give his life for a principle and esteem it a privilege to

make sacrifice for his convictions! What greater miracle than this, that

converts a selfish, self-centered human being into a center from which

good influences flow out in every direction! And yet this miracle has

been wrought in the heart of each one of us--or may be wrought--and we

have seen it wrought in the hearts and lives of those about us. No,

living a life that is a mystery, and living in the midst of mystery and

miracles, I shall not allow either to deprive me of the benefits of the

Christian religion. If you ask me if I understand everything in the

Bible, I answer, no, but if we will try to live up to what we do

understand, we will be kept so busy doing good that we will not have

time to worry about the passages which we do not understand.

Some of those who question the miracle also question the theory of

atonement; they assert that it does not accord with their idea of

justice for one to die for all. Let each one bear his own sins and the

punishments due for them, they say. The doctrine of vicarious suffering

is not a new one; it is as old as the race. That one should suffer for

others is one of the most familiar of principles and we see the

principle illustrated every day of our lives. Take the family, for

instance; from the day the mother's first child is born, for twenty or

thirty years her children are scarcely out of her waking thoughts. Her

life trembles in the balance at each child's birth; she sacrifices for

them, she surrenders herself to them. Is it because she expects them to

pay her back? Fortunate for the parent and fortunate for the child if

the latter has an opportunity to repay in part the debt it owes. But no

child can compensate a parent for a parent's care. In the course of

nature the debt is paid, not to the parent, but to the next generation,

and the next--each generation suffering, sacrificing for and

surrendering itself to the generation that follows. This is the law of

our lives.

Nor is this confined to the family. Every step in civilization has been

made possible by those who have been willing to sacrifice for posterity.

Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience and free

government have all been won for the world by those who were willing to

labor unselfishly for their fellows. So well established is this

doctrine that we do not regard anyone as great unless he recognizes how

unimportant his life is in comparison with the problems with which he

deals.

I find proof that man was made in the image of his Creator in the fact

that, throughout the centuries, man has been willing to die, if

necessary, that blessings denied to him might be enjoyed by his

children, his children's children and the world.

The seeming paradox: "He that saveth his life shall lose it and he that

loseth his life for my sake shall find it," has an application wider

than that usually given to it; it is an epitome of history. Those who

live only for themselves live little lives, but those who stand ready to

give themselves for the advancement of things greater than themselves

find a larger life than the one they would have surrendered. Wendell

Phillips gave expression to the same idea when he said, "What imprudent

men the benefactors of the race have been. How prudently most men sink

into nameless graves, while now and then a few _forget_ themselves into

immortality." We win immortality, not by remembering ourselves, but by

forgetting ourselves in devotion to things larger than ourselves.

Instead of being an unnatural plan, the plan of salvation is in perfect

harmony with human nature as we understand it. Sacrifice is the language

of love, and Christ, in suffering for the world, adopted the only means

of reaching the heart. This can be demonstrated not only by theory but

by experience, for the story of His life, His teachings, His sufferings

and His death has been translated into every language and everywhere it

has touched the heart.

But if I were going to present an argument in favor of the divinity of

Christ, I would not begin with miracles or mystery or with the theory of

atonement. I would begin as Carnegie Simpson does in his book entitled,

"The Fact of Christ." Commencing with the undisputed fact that Christ

lived, he points out that one cannot contemplate this fact without

feeling that in some way it is related to those now living. He says that

one can read of Alexander, of Cæsar or of Napoleon, and not feel that it

is a matter of personal concern; but that when one reads that Christ

lived, and how He lived and how He died, he feels that somehow there is

a cord that stretches from that life to his. As he studies the character

of Christ he becomes conscious of certain virtues which stand out in

bold relief--His purity, His forgiving spirit, and His unfathomable

love. The author is correct, Christ presents an example of purity in

thought and life, and man, conscious of his own imperfections and

grieved over his shortcomings, finds inspiration in the fact that He

was tempted in all points like as we are, and yet without sin. I am not

sure but that each can find just here a way of determining for himself

whether he possesses the true spirit of a Christian. If the sinlessness

of Christ inspires within him an earnest desire to conform his life more

nearly to the perfect example, he is indeed a follower; if, on the other

hand, he resents the reproof which the purity of Christ offers, and

refuses to mend his ways, he has yet to be born again.

The most difficult of all the virtues to cultivate is the forgiving

spirit. Revenge seems to be natural with man; it is human to want to get

even with an enemy. It has even been popular to boast of vindictiveness;

it was once inscribed on a man's monument that he had repaid both

friends and enemies more than he had received. This was not the spirit

of Christ. He taught forgiveness and in that incomparable prayer which

He left as model for our petitions, He made our willingness to forgive

the measure by which we may claim forgiveness. He not only taught

forgiveness but He exemplified His teachings in His life. When those who

persecuted Him brought Him to the most disgraceful of all deaths, His

spirit of forgiveness rose above His sufferings and He prayed, "Father,

forgive them, for they know not what they do!"

But love is the foundation of Christ's creed. The world had known love

before; parents had loved their children, and children their parents;

husbands had loved their wives, and wives their husbands; and friend had

loved friend; but Jesus gave a new definition of love. His love was as

wide as the sea; its limits were so far-flung that even an enemy could

not travel beyond its bounds. Other teachers sought to regulate the

lives of their followers by rule and formula, but Christ's plan was to

purify the heart and then to leave love to direct the footsteps.

What conclusion is to be drawn from the life, the teachings and the

death of this historic figure? Reared in a carpenter shop; with no

knowledge of literature, save Bible literature; with no acquaintance

with philosophers living or with the writings of sages dead, when only

about thirty years old He gathered disciples about Him, promulgated a

higher code of morals than the world had ever known before, and

proclaimed Himself the Messiah. He taught and performed miracles for a

few brief months and then was crucified; His disciples were scattered

and many of them put to death; His claims were disputed, His

resurrection denied and His followers persecuted; and yet from this

beginning His religion spread until hundreds of millions have taken His

name with reverence upon their lips and millions have been willing to

die rather than surrender the faith which He put into their hearts. How

shall we account for Him? Here is the greatest fact of history; here is

One who has with increasing power, for nineteen hundred years, moulded

the hearts, the thoughts and the lives of men, and He exerts more

influence to-day than ever before. "What think ye of Christ?" It is

easier to believe Him divine than to explain in any other way what he

said and did and was. And I have greater faith, even than before, since

I have visited the Orient and witnessed the successful contest which

Christianity is waging against the religions and philosophies of the

East.

I was thinking a few years ago of the Christmas which was then

approaching and of Him in whose honor the day is celebrated. I recalled

the message, "Peace on earth, good will to men," and then my thoughts

ran back to the prophecy uttered centuries before His birth, in which He

was described as the Prince of Peace. To reinforce my memory I re-read

the prophecy and I found immediately following a verse which I had

forgotten--a verse which declares that of the increase of His peace and

government there shall be no end, And, Isaiah adds, that He shall judge

His people with justice and with judgment. I had been reading of the

rise and fall of nations, and occasionally I had met a gloomy

philosopher who preached the doctrine that nations, like individuals,

must of necessity have their birth, their infancy, their maturity and

finally their decay and death. But here I read of a government that is

to be perpetual--a government of increasing peace and blessedness--the

government of the Prince of Peace--and it is to rest on justice. I have

thought of this prophecy many times during the last few years, and I

have selected this theme that I might present some of the reasons which

lead me to believe that Christ has fully earned the right to be called

The Prince of Peace--a title that will in the years to come be more and

more applied to Him. If he can bring peace to each individual heart, and

if His creed when applied will bring peace throughout the earth, who

will deny His right to be called the Prince of Peace?

All the world is in search of peace; every heart that ever beat has

sought for peace, and many have been the methods employed to secure it.

Some have thought to purchase it with riches and have labored to secure

wealth, hoping to find peace when they were able to go where they

pleased and buy what they liked. Of those who have endeavored to

purchase peace with money, the large majority have failed to secure the

money. But what has been the experience of those who have been eminently

successful in finance? They all tell the same story, viz., that they

spent the first half of their lives trying to get money from others and

the last half trying to keep others from getting their money, and that

they found peace in neither half. Some have even reached the point where

they find difficulty in getting people to accept their money; and I know

of no better indication of the ethical awakening in this country than

the increasing tendency to scrutinize the methods of money-making. I am

sanguine enough to believe that the time will yet come when

respectability will no longer be sold to great criminals by helping them

to spend their ill-gotten gains. A long step in advance will have been

taken when religious, educational and charitable institutions refuse to

condone conscienceless methods in business and leave the possessor of

illegitimate accumulations to learn how lonely life is when one prefers

money to morals.

Some have sought peace in social distinction, but whether they have been

within the charmed circle and fearful lest they might fall out, or

outside, and hopeful that they might get in, they have not found peace.

Some have thought, vain thought, to find peace in political prominence;

but whether office comes by birth, as in monarchies, or by election, as

in republics, it does not bring peace. An office is not considered a

high one if all can occupy it. Only when few in a generation can hope to

enjoy an honor do we call it a great honor. I am glad that our Heavenly

Father did not make the peace of the human heart to depend upon our

ability to buy it with money, secure it in society, or win it at the

polls, for in either case but few could have obtained it, but when He

made peace the reward of a conscience void of offense toward God and

man, He put it within the reach of all. The poor can secure it as easily

as the rich, the social outcasts as freely as the leader of society, and

the humblest citizen equally with those who wield political power.

To those who have grown gray in the Church, I need not speak of the

peace to be found in faith in God and trust in an overruling Providence.

Christ taught that our lives are precious in the sight of God, and poets

have taken up the thought and woven it into immortal verse. No

uninspired writer has exprest it more beautifully than William Cullen

Bryant in his Ode to a Waterfowl. After following the wanderings of the

bird of passage as it seeks first its southern and then its northern

home, he concludes:

Thou art gone; the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form, but on my heart

Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,

And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

Christ promoted peace by giving us assurance that a line of

communication can be established between the Father above and the child

below. And who will measure the consolations of the hour of prayer?

And immortality! Who will estimate the peace which a belief in a future

life has brought to the sorrowing hearts of the sons of men? You may

talk to the young about death ending all, for life is full and hope is

strong, but preach not this doctrine to the mother who stands by the

death-bed of her babe or to one who is within the shadow of a great

affliction. When I was a young man I wrote to Colonel Ingersoll and

asked him for his views on God and immortality. His secretary answered

that the great infidel was not at home, but enclosed a copy of a speech

of Col. Ingersoll's which covered my question. I scanned it with

eagerness and found that he had exprest himself about as follows: "I do

not say that there is no God, I simply say I do not know. I do not say

that there is no life beyond the grave, I simply say I do not know." And

from that day to this I have asked myself the question and have been

unable to answer it to my own satisfaction, how could anyone find

pleasure in taking from a human heart a living faith and substituting

therefor the cold and cheerless doctrine, "I do not know."

Christ gave us proof of immortality and it was a welcome assurance,

altho it would hardly seem necessary that one should rise from the dead

to convince us that the grave is not the end. To every created thing God

has given a tongue that proclaims a future life.

If the Father deigns to touch with divine power the cold and pulseless

heart of the buried acorn and to make it burst forth from its prison

walls, will he leave neglected in the earth the soul of man, made in the

image of his Creator? If he stoops to give to the rose bush, whose

withered blossoms float upon the autumn breeze, the sweet assurance of

another springtime, will He refuse the words of hope to the sons of men

when the frosts of winter come? If matter, mute and inanimate, tho

changed by the forces of nature into a multitude of forms, can never

die, will the imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation when it has

paid a brief visit like a royal guest to this tenement of clay? No, I am

sure that He who, notwithstanding his apparent prodigality, created

nothing without a purpose, and wasted not a single atom in all his

creation, has made provision for a future life in which man's universal

longing for immortality will find its realization. I am as sure that we

live again as I am sure that we live to-day.

In Cairo I secured a few grains of wheat that had slumbered for more

than thirty centuries in an Egyptian tomb. As I looked at them this

thought came into my mind: If one of those grains had been planted on

the banks of the Nile the year after it grew, and all its lineal

descendants had been planted and replanted from that time until now, its

progeny would to-day be sufficiently numerous to feed the teeming

millions of the world. An unbroken chain of life connects the earliest

grains of wheat with the grains that we sow and reap. There is in the

grain of wheat an invisible something which has power to discard the

body that we see, and from earth and air fashion a new body so much like

the old one that we cannot tell the one from the other. If this

invisible germ of life in the grain of wheat can thus pass unimpaired

through three thousand resurrections, I shall not doubt that my soul has

power to clothe itself with a body suited to its new existence when this

earthly frame has crumbled into dust.

A belief in immortality not only consoles the individual, but it exerts

a powerful influence in bringing peace between individuals. If one

actually thinks that man dies as the brute dies, he will yield more

easily to the temptation to do injustice to his neighbor when the

circumstances are such as to promise security from detection. But if one

really expects to meet again, and live eternally with, those whom he

knows to-day, he is restrained from evil deeds by the fear of endless

remorse. We do not know what rewards are in store for us or what

punishments may be reserved, but if there were no other it would be some

punishment for one who deliberately and consciously wrongs another to

have to live forever in the company of the person wronged and have his

littleness and selfishness laid bare. I repeat, a belief in immortality

must exert a powerful influence in establishing justice between men and

thus laying the foundation for peace.

Again, Christ deserves to be called The Prince of Peace because He has

given us a measure of greatness which promotes peace. When His disciples

quarreled among themselves as to which should be greatest in the Kingdom

of Heaven, He rebuked them and said: "Let him who would be chiefest

among you be the servant of all." Service is the measure of greatness;

it always has been true; it is true to-day, and it always will be true,

that he is greatest who does the most of good. And how this old world

will be transformed when this standard of greatness becomes the

standard of every life! Nearly all of our controversies and combats grow

out of the fact that we are trying to get something from each

other--there will be peace when our aim is to do something for each

other. Our enmities and animosities arise largely from our efforts to

get as much as possible out of the world--there will be peace when our

endeavor is to put as much as possible into the world. The human measure

of a human life is its income; the divine measure of a life is its

outgo, its overflow--its contribution to the welfare of all.

Christ also led the way to peace by giving us a formula for the

propagation of truth. Not all of those who have really desired to do

good have employed the Christian method--not all Christians even. In the

history of the human race but two methods have been used. The first is

the forcible method, and it has been employed most frequently. A man has

an idea which he thinks is good; he tells his neighbors about it and

they do not like it. This makes him angry; he thinks it would be so

much better for them if they would like it, and, seizing a club, he

attempts to make them like it. But one trouble about this rule is that

it works both ways; when a man starts out to compel his neighbors to

think as he does, he generally finds them willing to accept the

challenge and they spend so much time in trying to coerce each other

that they have no time left to do each other good.

The other is the Bible plan--"Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil

with good." And there is no other way of overcoming evil. I am not much

of a farmer--I get more credit for my farming than I deserve, and my

little farm receives more advertising than it is entitled to. But I am

farmer enough to know that if I cut down weeds they will spring up

again; and farmer enough to know that if I plant something there which

has more vitality than the weeds I shall not only get rid of the

constant cutting, but have the benefit of the crop besides.

In order that there might be no mistake in His plan of propagating the

truth, Christ went into detail and laid emphasis upon the value of

example--"So live that others seeing your good works may be constrained

to glorify your Father which is in Heaven." There is no human influence

so potent for good as that which goes out from an upright life. A sermon

may be answered; the arguments presented in a speech may be disputed,

but no one can answer a Christian life--it is the unanswerable argument

in favor of our religion.

It may be a slow process--this conversion of the world by the silent

influence of a noble example--but it is the only sure one, and the

doctrine applies to nations as well as to individuals. The Gospel of the

Prince of Peace gives us the only hope that the world has--and it is an

increasing hope--of the substitution of reason for the arbitrament of

force in the settlement of international disputes. And our nation ought

not to wait for other nations--it ought to take the lead and prove its

faith in the omnipotence of truth.

But Christ has given us a platform so fundamental that it can be applied

successfully to all controversies. We are interested in platforms; we

attend conventions, sometimes traveling long distances; we have wordy

wars over the phraseology of various planks, and then we wage earnest

campaigns to secure the endorsement of these platforms at the polls. The

platform given to the world by The Prince of Peace is more far-reaching

and more comprehensive than any platform ever written by the convention

of any party in any country. When He condensed into one commandment

those of the ten which relate to man's duty toward his fellows and

enjoined upon us the rule, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," He

presented a plan for the solution of all the problems that now vex

society or may hereafter arise. Other remedies may palliate or postpone

the day of settlement, but this is all-sufficient and the

reconciliation which it effects is a permanent one.

My faith in the future--and I have faith--and my optimism--for I am an

optimist--my faith and my optimism rest upon the belief that Christ's

teachings are being more studied to-day than ever before, and that with

this larger study will come a larger application of those teachings to

the everyday life of the world, and to the questions with which we deal.

In former times when men read that Christ came "to bring life and

immortality to light," they placed the emphasis upon immortality; now

they are studying Christ's relation to human life. People used to read

the Bible to find out what it said of Heaven; now they read it more to

find what light it throws upon the pathway of to-day. In former years

many thought to prepare themselves for future bliss by a life of

seclusion here; we are learning that to follow in the footsteps of the

Master we must go about doing good. Christ declared that He came that we

might have life and have it more abundantly. The world is learning that

Christ came not to narrow life, but to enlarge it--not to rob it of its

joy, but to fill it to overflowing with purpose, earnestness and

happiness.

But this Prince of Peace promises not only peace but strength. Some have

thought His teachings fit only for the weak and the timid and unsuited

to men of vigor, energy and ambition. Nothing could be farther from the

truth. Only the man of faith can be courageous. Confident that he fights

on the side of Jehovah, he doubts not the success of his cause. What

matters it whether he shares in the shouts of triumph? If every word

spoken in behalf of truth has its influence and every deed done for the

right weighs in the final account, it is immaterial to the Christian

whether his eyes behold victory or whether he dies in the midst of the

conflict.

"Yea, tho thou lie upon the dust,

When they who helped thee flee in fear,

Die full of hope and manly trust,

Like those who fell in battle here.

Another hand thy sword shall wield,

Another hand the standard wave,

Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed,

The blast of triumph o'er thy grave."

Only those who _believe_ attempt the seemingly impossible, and, by

attempting, prove that one, with God, can chase a thousand and that two

can put ten thousand to flight. I can imagine that the early Christians

who were carried into the coliseum to make a spectacle for those more

savage than the beasts, were entreated by their doubting companions not

to endanger their lives. But, kneeling in the center of the arena, they

prayed and sang until they were devoured. How helpless they seemed, and,

measured by every human rule, how hopeless was their cause! And yet

within a few decades the power which they invoked proved mightier than

the legions of the emperor and the faith in which they died was

triumphant o'er all the land. It is said that those who went to mock at

their sufferings returned asking themselves, "What is it that can enter

into the heart of man and make him die as these die?" They were greater

conquerors in their death than they could have been had they purchased

life by a surrender of their faith.

What would have been the fate of the church if the early Christians had

had as little faith as many of our Christians of to-day? And if the

Christians of to-day had the faith of the martyrs, how long would it be

before the fulfilment of the prophecy that "every knee shall bow and

every tongue confess?"

I am glad that He, who is called the Prince of Peace--who can bring

peace to every troubled heart and whose teachings, exemplified in life,

will bring peace between man and man, between community and community,

between State and State, between nation and nation throughout the

world--I am glad that He brings courage as well as peace so that those

who follow Him may take up and each day bravely do the duties that to

that day fall.

As the Christian grows older he appreciates more and more the

completeness with which Christ satisfies the longings of the heart, and,

grateful for the peace which he enjoys and for the strength which he has

received, he repeats the words of the great scholar, Sir William Jones:

"Before thy mystic altar, heavenly truth,

I kneel in manhood, as I knelt in youth,

Thus let me kneel, till this dull form decay,

And life's last shade be brightened by thy ray."

_RUFUS CHOATE_

EULOGY OF WEBSTER

Delivered at Dartmouth College, July 27, 1853.

Webster possessed the element of an impressive character, inspiring

regard, trust and admiration, not unmingled with love. It had, I think,

intrinsically a charm such as belongs only to a good, noble, and

beautiful nature. In its combination with so much fame, so much force of

will, and so much intellect, it filled and fascinated the imagination

and heart. It was affectionate in childhood and youth, and it was more

than ever so in the few last months of his long life. It is the

universal testimony that he gave to his parents, in largest measure,

honor, love, obedience; that he eagerly appropriated the first means

which he could command to relieve the father from the debts contracted

to educate his brother and himself; that he selected his first place of

professional practice that he might soothe the coming on of his old age.

Equally beautiful was his love of all his kindred and of all his

friends. When I hear him accused of selfishness, and a cold, bad nature,

I recall him lying sleepless all night, not without tears of boyhood,

conferring with Ezekiel how the darling desire of both hearts should be

compassed, and he, too, admitted to the precious privileges of

education; courageously pleading the cause of both brothers in the

morning; prevailing by the wise and discerning affection of the mother;

suspending his studies of the law, and registering deeds and teaching

school to earn the means, for both, of availing themselves of the

opportunity which the parental self-sacrifice had placed within their

reach; loving him through life, mourning him when dead, with a love and

a sorrow very wonderful, passing the sorrow of woman; I recall the

husband, the father of the living and of the early departed, the friend,

the counselor of many years, and my heart grows too full and liquid for

the refutation of words.

His affectionate nature, craving ever friendship, as well as the

presence of kindred blood, diffused itself through all his private life,

gave sincerity to all his hospitalities, kindness to his eye, warmth to

the pressure of his hand, made his greatness and genius unbend

themselves to the playfulness of childhood, flowed out in graceful

memories indulged of the past or the dead, of incidents when life was

young and promised to be happy,--gave generous sketches of his

rivals,--the high contention now hidden by the handful of earth,--hours

passed fifty years ago with great authors, recalled for the vernal

emotions which then they made to live and revel in the soul. And from

these conversations of friendship, no man--no man, old or young--went

away to remember one word of profaneness, one allusion of indelicacy,

one impure thought, one unbelieving suggestion, one doubt cast on the

reality of virtue, of patriotism, of enthusiasm, of the progress of

man,--one doubt cast on righteousness, or temperance, or judgment to

come.

I have learned by evidence the most direct and satisfactory that in the

last months of his life, the whole affectionateness of his nature--his

consideration of others, his gentleness, his desire to make them happy

and to see them happy--seemed to come out in more and more beautiful and

habitual expressions than ever before. The long day's public tasks were

felt to be done; the cares, the uncertainties, the mental conflicts of

high place, were ended; and he came home to recover himself for the few

years which he might still expect would be his before he should go hence

to be here no more. And there, I am assured and duly believe, no

unbecoming regrets pursued him; no discontent, as for injustice suffered

or expectations unfulfilled; no self-reproach for anything done or

anything omitted by himself; no irritation, no peevishness unworthy of

his noble nature; but instead, love and hope for his country, when she

became the subject of conversation, and for all around him, the dearest

and most indifferent, for all breathing things about him, the overflow

of the kindest heart growing in gentleness and benevolence--paternal,

patriarchal affections, seeming to become more natural, warm, and

communicative every hour. Softer and yet brighter grew the tints on the

sky of parting day; and the last lingering rays, more even than the

glories of noon, announced how divine was the source from which they

proceeded; how incapable to be quenched; how certain to rise on a

morning which no night should follow.

Such a character was made to be loved. It was loved. Those who knew and

saw it in its hour of calm--those who could repose on that soft

green--loved him. His plain neighbors loved him; and one said, when he

was laid in his grave, "How lonesome the world seems!" Educated young

men loved him. The ministers of the gospel, the general intelligence of

the country, the masses afar oft, loved him. True, they had not found in

his speeches, read by millions, so much adulation of the people; so much

of the music which robs the public reason of itself; so many phrases of

humanity and philanthropy; and some had told them he was lofty and

cold--solitary in his greatness; but every year they came nearer and

nearer to him, and as they came nearer, they loved him better; they

heard how tender the son had been, the husband, the brother, the father,

the friend, and neighbor; that he was plain, simple, natural, generous,

hospitable--the heart larger than the brain; that he loved little

children and reverenced God, the Scriptures, the Sabbath-day, the

Constitution, and the law--and their hearts clave unto him. More truly

of him than even of the great naval darling of England might it be said

that "his presence would set the church bells ringing, and give

schoolboys a holiday, would bring children from school and old men from

the chimney-corner, to gaze on him ere he died." The great and

unavailing lamentations first revealed the deep place he had in the

hearts of his countrymen.

You are now to add to this his extraordinary power of influencing the

convictions of others by speech, and you have completed the survey of

the means of his greatness. And here, again I begin by admiring an

aggregate made up of excellences and triumphs, ordinarily deemed

incompatible. He spoke with consummate ability to the bench, and yet

exactly as, according to every sound canon of taste and ethics, the

bench ought to be addressed. He spoke with consummate ability to the

jury, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon, that totally

different tribunal ought to be addressed. In the halls of Congress,

before the people assembled for political discussion in masses, before

audiences smaller and more select, assembled for some solemn

commemoration of the past or of the dead--in each of these, again, his

speech, of the first form of ability, was exactly adapted, also, to the

critical properties of the place; each achieved, when delivered, the

most instant and specific success of eloquence--some of them in a

splendid and remarkable degree; and yet, stranger still, when reduced to

writing, as they fell from his lips, they compose a body of reading in

many volumes--solid, clear, rich, and full of harmony--a classical and

permanent political literature.

And yet all these modes of his eloquence, exactly adapted each to its

stage and its end, were stamped with his image and superscription,

identified by characteristics incapable to be counterfeited and

impossible to be mistaken. The same high power of reason, intent in

every one to explore and display some truth; some truth of judicial, or

historical, or biographical fact; some truth of law, deduced by

construction, perhaps, or by illation; some truth of policy, for want

whereof a nation, generations, may be the worse--reason seeking and

unfolding truth; the same tone, in all, of deep earnestness, expressive

of strong desire that what he felt to be important should be accepted as

true, and spring up to action; the same transparent, plain, forcible,

and direct speech, conveying his exact thought to the mind--not

something less or more; the same sovereignty of form, of brow, and eye,

and tone, and manner--everywhere the intellectual king of men, standing

before you--that same marvelousness of qualities and results, residing,

I know not where, in words, in pictures, in the ordering of ideas,

infelicities indescribable, by means whereof, coming from his tongue,

all things seemed mended--truth seemed more true, probability more

plausible, greatness more grand, goodness more awful, every affection

more tender than when coming from other tongues--these are, in all, his

eloquence.

But sometimes it became individualized and discriminated even from

itself; sometimes place and circumstances, great interests at stake, a

stage, an audience fitted for the highest historic action, a crisis,

personal or national, upon him, stirred the depths of that emotional

nature, as the anger of the goddess stirs the sea on which the great

epic is beginning; strong passions themselves kindled to intensity,

quickened every faculty to a new life; the stimulated associations of

ideas brought all treasures of thought and knowledge within command; the

spell, which often held his imagination fast, dissolved, and she arose

and gave him to choose of her urn of gold; earnestness became vehemence,

the simple, perspicuous, measured and direct language became a headlong,

full, and burning tide of speech; the discourse of reason, wisdom,

gravity, and beauty changed to that superhuman, that rarest consummate

eloquence--grand, rapid, pathetic, terrible; the _aliquid immensum

infinitumque_ that Cicero might have recognized; the master triumph of

man in the rarest opportunity of his noble power.