If you wish to get at the bottom facts, I don't mind telling you-in confidence that it was we Scotch-Irish who vanquished both of yousome of us in peace-others of us in war-supplying the missing link of adaptability-the needed ingredient of common sense-the conservative principle of creed and action, to which this generation of Americans. owes its intellectual and moral emancipation from frivolity and pharisaism-its rescue from the Scarlet Woman and the mailed hand-and its crystallization into a national character and polity, ruling by force of brains and not by force of arms. Gentlemen-Sir-I, too, have been to Boston. Strange as the admission may seem, it is true; and I live to tell the tale. I have been to Boston; and when I declare that I found there many things that suggested the Cavalier and did not suggest the Puritan, I shall not say I was sorry. But among other things, I found there a civilization perfect in its union of the art of living with the grace of life; an Americanism. ideal in its simple strength. Grady told us, and told us truly, of that typical American who, in Dr. Talmage's mind's eye, was coming, but who, in Abraham Lincoln's actuality, had already come. In some recent studies into the career of that great man, I have encountered many startling confirmations of this judgment; and from that rugged trunk, drawing its sustenance from gnarled roots, interlocked with Cavalier sprays and Puritan branches deep beneath the soil, shall spring, is springing, a shapely tree-symmetric in all its parts-under whose sheltering boughs this nation shall have the new birth of freedom Lincoln promised it, and mankind the refuge which was sought by the forefathers when they fled from oppression. Thank God, the ax, the gibbet, and the stake have had their day. They have gone, let us hope, to keep company with the lost arts. It has been demonstrated that great wrongs may be redressed and great reforms be achieved without the shedding of one drop of human blood; that vengeance does not purify, but brutalizes; and that tolerance, which in private transactions is reckoned a virtue, becomes in public affairs a dogma of the most farseeing statesmanship. Else how could this noble city have been redeemed from bondage? It was held like a castle of the Middle Ages by robber barons, who levied tribute right and left. Yet have the mounds and dykes of corruption been carried-from buttress to bell-tower the walls of crime have fallen-without a shot out of a gun, and still no fires of Smithfield to light the pathway of the victor, no bloody assizes to vindicate the justice of the cause; nor need of any. So I appeal from the men in silken hose who danced to music made by slaves and called it freedom-from the men in bell-crowned hats, who led Hester Prynne to her shame-and called it religion-to that Americanism which reaches forth its arms to smite wrong with reason and truth, secure in the power of both. I appeal from the patriarchs; of New England to the poets of New England; from Endicott to Lowell; from Winthrop to Longfellow; from Norton to Holmes; and I appeal in the name and by the rights of that common citizenship-of that common origin-back both of the Puritan and the Cavalier-to which all of us owe our being. Let the dead past, consecrated by the blood of its martyrs, not by its savage hatreds-darkened alike by kingcraft and priestcraft-let the dead past bury its dead. Let the present and the future ring with the song of the singers. Blessed be the lessons they teach, the laws they make. Blessed be the eye to see, the light to reveal. Blessed be Tolerance, sitting ever on the right hand of God to guide. the way with loving word, as blessed be all that brings us nearer the goal of true religion, true Republicanism and true patriotism, distrust of watchwords and labels, shams and heroes, belief in our country and ourselves. It was not Cotton Mather, but John Greenleaf Whittier, who cried: "Dear God and Father of us all, "Cast down our idols-overturn [Applause and cheers.] § 53 SONS AND GUESTS OF HARVARD By Joseph H. Choate (Speech as presiding officer at the Harvard Alumni dinner, Cambridge, Mass., June 24, 1885.) BRETHREN OF THE ALUMNI: Now that you have banqueted upon these more substantial dainties which the Delmonico of Harvard has provided [laughter], I invite you to partake of the more delicate diet of tongues and sounds [laughter]-the favorite dish of every Harvard. dinner-where, of course, every alumnus expects to get his deserts. JOSEPH H. CHOATE. Born Salem, Mass., January 24, 1832; educated at Harvard; admitted to the bar in 1855; began the practice of law in New York City in 1855; Ambassador to England, 1899-1905; died May 14, 1917. We have assembled for the two hundred and forty-ninth time to pay our vows at the shrine of our Alma Mater, to revel in the delights of mutual admiration, and to welcome to the commencement of actual life 175 new brethren that our mother has brought forth to-day. [Laughter.] Gentlemen, it is your great misfortune, that I have been called upon, on two occasions, to stand here in the place of the president of your choice, and to fill the shoes of a better man, and if I shuffle awkwardly along in them, you will remember that they are several sizes too large for me, and with higher heels than I am accustomed to wear. [Laughter.] On a former occasion, in view of the incompatibility of sentiment among high authorities [laughter], I did not what I might to stem the tide of a scemingly irrepressible conflict, and, by your counsel and aid, with apparent success. [Applause.] "Grim visaged war" did smooth "his wrinkled front" [laughter], and peace and harmony prevailed where blood had threatened. But now, gentlemen, can I hope to fill your just expectations to-day, when you have justly counted upon the most popular of all your divines. and the most fervent of all your orators, who should now be leading your council here? But Phillips Brooks, having long ago mastered all hearts at home, has gone abroad in search of new conquests. [Applause.] When last heard from he was doing well in very kindred company; for he was breakfasting with Gladstone, the statesman whose defeat is his mightiest victory [applause]; the scholar and the orator, who would exchange for no title in the royal gift the luster of his own great name. [Applause.] But, gentlemen, I have no fears for the success of this occasion, notwithstanding the absence we deplore, when I look around these tables and see who still are here. In the first place, you are all here. [Laughter and applause.] And when the sons of Harvard are all together, basking in the sunshine of each other's countenances, what need is there for the sun to shine? And, then President Eliot is here. [Applause.] I remember that sixteen years ago, we gave him his first welcome to the seat where Quincy, Everett, Sparks and Felton and Walker had sat before him; and, to-day, in your names, I may thank him that he has more than redeemed the pride and promise of the earlier days. While it cannot exactly be said that he found Harvard of brick and left it marble, it can truly be said that he found it a college and has already made it a university [applause]; and let us all hope that his faithful reign over us may continue as long as he has the strength and the courage to carry on the good work that he has in hand. And, then, the governor of the Commonwealth is here [applause], always a most honored guest among the alumni of Harvard. [Applause.] Governor Winthrop attended the first commencement in 1642; and I be lieve that since that time there has never been any exception to the presence of the chief magistrate. Then, gentlemen, we are honored with the presence of the VicePresident of the United States.1 [Applause.] And now that Harvard has assumed such national proportions, what could be more fit than that we should welcome to our board one of the chief representatives of the national government? He comes to us, gentlemen, fresh from Yale [laughter], and if we may believe the morning papers-a very large if, I admit-if we may believe those veracious journals, the eminent Vice-President yesterday at New Haven gave utterance to two brief and pithy sentiments, one of which we shall accept, with absolute, unqualified applause, and the other of which we must swallow, if at all, with a modification. "Yale," said he, in short and sententious words -which are the essence of great men and which we are all so fond of hearing and reporting-"Yale," said he, "is everywhere." Gentlemen, I would say with this modification: Yes, Yale is everywhere, but she always finds Harvard there before her. [Applause.] Gentlemen, the rudeness of your manner broke off my sentence. [Laughter.] She always finds Harvard there before her, or close alongside or very close in her rear; and let us hope that the boys at New London will demonstrate the truth of that to-morrow. [Applause.] The other sentiment that he uttered, gentlemen, and that needs no qualification, is that public office is a public trust. [Applause.]. Gentlemen, in saying that, he stole Harvard thunder. That has been her doctrine since the days of John Adams; and I am sure that you will be perfectly delighted to hear from this eminent man that old doctrine of ours reënforced. But, gentlemen, better than all the rest, once more at home in his old place among us again, is James Russell Lowell. [Applause. All rose for three cheers and nine "rahs."] Eight years ago, gentlemen, he left us for the public service. Men who did not know him wondered how poetry and diplomacy would work together; poetry, the science of all truth, and diplomacy that is thought sometimes to be not quite so true. Well, if you will allow me, I will explain his triumphs abroad by a wise saying of Goethe's, the fitness of which, I think, you will recognize. "Poetry," he says, "belongs not to the noble nor to the people, neither to king nor to peasant; it is the offspring of a true man." Gentlemen, it is not because of the laurels that were heaped upon him abroad, not because he commanded new honor for the American scholar and the American people, and not because his name will henceforth be a new bond of union between the two countries; but we learned to love him before he went away, because we knew that, from the beginning, 'Thomas Andrew Hendricks. he had been the fearless champion of truth and of freedom, and, during every year of his absence, we have loved him the more. And so, in your names, I bid him a cordial welcome home again. [Applause.] You will also be pleased to hear that Dr. Holmes [applause] has been inspired by this interesting feature of the occasion to mount his Pegasus once more and ride out to Cambridge upon his back; and soon you will hear him strike his lyre once more in praise of his younger brother. [Applause.] But, gentlemen, these are not all the treasures that are in store for you. Dr. James Freeman Clarke, after twenty-five years of continuous service on the Board of Overseers, from which he now retires, by the strength of the constitution, will tell you frankly what he thinks about you and about them. And then, to the class of 1835 the crowning honors of this day belong, and I am pleased to say that their chosen spokesman, although pretending to be for the moment an invalid-he wrote to me that he was no better than he should be [laughter]-he is here to speak for them. For us who have been coming up to Cambridge for the last thirty years, I would like to know what a Harvard Commencement without Judge Hoar would be? Who can forget the quips and cranks and wanton wiles with which he has beguiled many an hour that promised to be dull; and how he has, I will not say blighted, but dimmed, some of our lighter moments by words of wisdom and power. So in your name I say: "Long life and a green old age to Judge Hoar and all the members of the class of 1835." Then, gentlemen, all these new doctors of the law: why, Harvard, returning to an ancient custom, has been graduating them out of her own sons, and to-day it may truly be said that the university has been growing rich and strong by degrees. [Laughter.] You will be glad to hear all of them speak for themselves. Of one of them, Dr. Carter. I will say, from intimate knowledge, that he leads us gallantly at the bar of New York, and all his associates rejoice in his leadership. He has recently rendered a signal service to the jurisprudence of that great State by contributing more than any other man to the defeat of a code which threatened to involve all the settled law of the community in confusion and contempt. Well, gentlemen, as I have told you who are to speak to you, I should sit down. I believe, however, it is usual for the presiding officer to recall any startling events in the history of the college. Gentlemen, there have been none. The petition of the undergraduates for what they called a fuller civil and religious liberty, in being relieved from compulsory attendance on morning prayers, was happily denied. The answer of the overseers was well-conceived-that, in obedience to the settled rules and regulations of the college, of which that was one, they |