Part 17

One serious word, gentlemen. The New England character and the influence of New England men and women have made their impress upon the whole country; for, even in the South, during the time of slavery, educated men and women from New England were the tutors and instructors of the youth of the South in the plantation home. The love of education, the resolve that it should be general, the love of home with all the pure and sacred influences that cluster about it, are elements in the New England character that have a saving force which is incalculable in this great nation in which we live. Your civil institutions have been free, high and clean. From the old town-meeting days till now, New England has believed in and practised the Free Election and the Fair Count. But, gentlemen, I cannot enumerate all of your virtues--time is brief, the catalogue long. Will you permit me to thank you and your honored President for your gracious reception of me to-night? [Long-continued cheering.]

JOSEPH ROSWELL HAWLEY

THE PRESS

[Speech of Gen. Joseph R. Hawley at the seventieth annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1875. The President, Isaac H. Bailey, said by way of introduction: "Gentlemen, I will now give you the tenth regular toast: 'The Press.' This toast, gentlemen, will be responded to by a member of the press who has always adorned his profession--General Hawley, of Connecticut."]

GENTLEMEN:--Our distinguished President paid the very highest compliment to the Press to-night; for, while he has given at least a fortnight's notice to every other gentleman, he only told me to-night that I had to respond to the toast of "The Press." But as I have attended a good many dinners of the New England Society, and never knew "The Press" to be called upon before midnight, I felt entirely safe. [Laughter.] Now, sir, I have spent an evening--some six hours--here, enjoying all the festivities and hospitalities of this occasion to the utmost, and at last I am called upon, at an hour when we are all full of jollity and mirth, to respond to a toast that in reality calls upon me for my most serious effort. [Applause.] I assure you that, had I known that I was to speak upon this subject to-night, I would, contrary to my usual custom, have been deliberately prepared [laughter]; for I, in reality, have a great deal to say upon that matter; and permit me to add that I have a somewhat peculiar qualification, for I have been a man within the press, "a chiel amang ye takin' notes, an' prentin' them;" and I have been again a man altogether outside of the press, not writing for months to his own people, and subject to receive all the gibes and criticisms and attacks of the press. [Applause.] "I know how it is myself." [Laughter.]

"The Press of the Republic" is a text worthy of the noblest oration. It has a great, a high, and a holy duty. It is at once the leader and educator, and, on the other hand, the representative of the people. I can only touch on some points that I have in my mind, upon this occasion. It seems to me that we are passing through a period of peculiar importance regarding the value and influence of the press of the American Republic. There are times when I join with them in the most indignant denunciation, in the warmest appeal. There are times when I feel the cutting, cruel, stinging injustice of the American press. [Applause.] It is the duty of an editor, sitting, as he does, as a judge--and I mean all that the word implies--upon all that goes on about him in public life--it is his duty to hear both sides, and all sides, as deliberately and calmly as he may, and to pronounce a judgment that, so far as he knows, may be the judgment of posterity. [Applause.] It is true that he has two duties. We know that it is his duty to condemn the bad. When it is made perfectly clear that the bad man is really a bad man, a corrupter of youth, make him drink the hemlock, expel him, punish him, crush him. [Applause.]

But there is another duty imposed upon the American press, quite as great. If there be a man who loves the Republic, who would work for it, who would talk for it, who would fight for it, who would die for it--there are millions of them, thank God!--it is the duty of the American press to uphold him, and to praise him when the time comes, in the proper place, on the proper occasion. [Applause.] The press is to deal not alone in censure of the bad, but in praise of the good. I like the phrase, "The independent press." [Applause.] I am an editor myself. I love my calling. I think it is growing to be one of the great professions of the day. I claim, as an editor (and that is my chief pursuit in life), to be a gentleman also. [Applause, and cries of "Good! Good!"] If I see or know anything to be wrong in the land, high or low, I will say so. If it be in my own party, I will take special pains to say so [applause]; for I suppose it to be true of both parties that we have a very high, a very glorious, a very beautiful, a very lovable idea of the future American Republic. [Applause.]

So I will condemn, I say, whatever may be wrong. I hold myself to be an independent journalist. [Cries of "Good!"]

But, my friends, I hope you will excuse the phrase--I am going to follow it by another--at the same time I do freely avow that I am a _partisan_; for I never knew anything good, from Moses down to John Brown, that was not carried through by partisanship. [Applause.] If you believe in anything, say so; work for it, fight for it. There are always two sides in the world. The good fight is always going on. The bad men are always working; the devil is always busy. And again, on the other side you have your high idea of whatever is beautiful and good and true in the world; and God is always working also. The man who stands between them--who says: "This is somewhat good, and that is somewhat good; I stand between them"--permit me to say, is a man for whom I have very little respect. [Applause.] Some men say there is a God; some men say there is no God. Some of the independents say that the truth lies between them. [Laughter.] I cannot find it between them. Every man has a God. If you believe in your God,--he may be another God from mine--if you are a man, I want you to fight for him, and I may have to fight against you, but do you fight for the God that you believe in. [Applause.]

I do sincerely think (and I wish that this was a congregation of my fellow-editors of the whole land, for my heart is in reality full of this thing)--I do sincerely think that there is something of a danger that our eloquent, ready, powerful, versatile, indefatigable, vigorous, omnipresent, omniscient men of the press may drive out of public life--and they will ridicule that phrase--may drive out of public life, not all, but a very considerable class of sensitive, high-minded, honorable, ambitious gentlemen. [Applause.] Now, I do not say anything about the future for myself. I have got a "free lance," I have got a newspaper, and I can fight with the rest of them; but I will give you a bit of my experience in public life. I tell you, my friends of the New England Society, that one of the sorest things that a man in public life has to bear is the reckless, unreasonable censure of members of the press whom individually he respects. [Applause.] That large-hearted man, whom personally I love, with whom I could shake hands, with whom I did shake hands, with whom I sat at the social board time and again, grossly misinterprets my public actions; intimates all manner of dishonorable things, which I would fight at two paces rather than be guilty of; and it would be useless for me to write a public letter to explain or contradict. [Applause.]

Now, I am only one of hundreds. I can stand still and wait the result, in the confidence that, if not all, yet some, men believe me to be honorable and true; if they do not, God and I know it, and I would "fight it out on that line." [Applause.]

Gentlemen, it is rather my habit to talk in earnest. Next to the evil of having all public men in this land corrupt; next to the evil of having all our governmental affairs in the hands of men venal and weak and narrow, debauching public life and carrying it down to destruction, is the calamity of having all the young men believe it is so, whether it be so or not. [Applause.] Teach all the boys to believe that every man who goes into public life has his price; teach all the boys to believe that there is no man who enters public life anywhere that does not look out for his own, and is not always scheming to do something for himself or his friends, and seeking to prolong his power; teach every young man who has a desire to go into political life, to think--because you have told him so--that the way to succeed is to follow such arts, and by that kind of talk you may ruin your country. [Applause.]

Now, gentlemen, as I have said, this is a matter for an evening oration. I have barely touched some of the points. I have said the press has a twofold duty and fortune: it is the leader, the educator, the director of the people. It is, at the same time, the reflector of the people. I could spend an hour upon the theme.

I cannot cease, however, without thanking the President of the St. Patrick's Society [Denis MacMahon], the only gentleman who has mentioned the word "centennial." When I was leaving Philadelphia, my wife warned me not to use that word, knowing to what it might lead me [laughter]; and so I shall simply ask you all to come to Philadelphia next year, and join in the great national exhibition, where you will have an opportunity of seeing the progress which this nation has made under the ideas of liberty, government, industry, and thrift which were instilled by the Pilgrim Fathers. [Applause.]

JOHN HAY

OMAR KHAYYAM

[Speech of John Hay, American Ambassador to Great Britain, at a dinner of the Omar Khayyam Club, London, December 8, 1897. Henry Norman, President of the Club, took the chair and in introducing Colonel Hay, as the guest of the evening, spoke of him as soldier, diplomatist, scholar, poet and Omarian.]

GENTLEMEN:--I cannot sufficiently thank you for the high and unmerited honor you have done me to-night. I feel keenly that on such an occasion, with such company, my place is below the salt, but as you kindly invited me it was not in human nature for me to refuse. Although in knowledge and comprehension of the two great poets whom you are met to commemorate I am the least among them, there is no one who regards them with greater admiration, or reads them with more enjoyment than myself. I can never forget my emotions when I first saw Fitzgerald's translation of the Quatrains. Keats, in his sublime ode on Chapman's Homer, has described the sensation once for all:--

"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims into his ken."

The exquisite beauty, the faultless form, the singular grace of those amazing stanzas, were not more wonderful than the depth and breadth of their profound philosophy, their knowledge of life, their dauntless courage, their serene facing of the ultimate problems of life and of death.

Of course the doubt did not spare me, which has assailed many as ignorant as I was of the literature of the East, whether it was the poet or his translator to whom was due this splendid result. Was it, in fact, a reproduction of a new song, or a mystification of a great modern, careless of fame and scornful of his time? Could it be possible that in the eleventh century, so far away as Khorassan, so accomplished a man of letters lived, with such distinction, such breadth, such insight, such calm disillusion, such cheerful and jocund despair? Was this Weltschmerz, which we thought a malady of our day, endemic in Persia in 1100? My doubt lasted only till I came upon a literal translation of the Rubaiyat, and I saw that not the least remarkable quality of Fitzgerald's was its fidelity to the original. In short, Omar was a Fitzgerald before the latter, or Fitzgerald was a reincarnation of Omar. It is not to the disadvantage of the later poet that he followed so closely in the footsteps of the earlier. A man of extraordinary genius had appeared in the world; had sung a song of incomparable beauty and power in an environment no longer worthy of him, in a language of narrow range; for many generations the song was virtually lost; then by a miracle of creation, a poet, a twin-brother in the spirit to the first, was born, who took up the forgotten poem and sung it anew with all its original melody and force, and all the accumulated refinement of ages of art. [Cheers.]

It seems to me idle to ask which was the greater master; each seems greater than his work. The song is like an instrument of precious workmanship and marvellous tone, which is worthless in common hands, but when it falls, at long intervals, into the hands of the supreme master, it yields a melody of transcendent enchantment to all that have ears to hear. If we look at the sphere of influence of the two poets there is no longer any comparison. Omar sang to a half barbarous province; Fitzgerald to the world. Wherever the English speech is spoken or read, the Rubaiyat have taken their place as a classic. There is not a hill-post in India, nor a village in England, where there is not a coterie to whom Omar Khayyam is a familiar friend and a bond of union. In America he has an equal following, in many regions and conditions. In the Eastern States his adepts form an esoteric sect; the beautiful volume of drawings by Mr. Vedder is a centre of delight and suggestion wherever it exists. In the cities of the West you will find the Quatrains one of the most thoroughly read books in every Club Library. I heard Omar quoted once in one of the most lovely and desolate spots of the High Rockies. We had been camping on the Great Divide, our "roof of the world," where in the space of a few feet you may see two springs, one sending its water to the Polar solitudes, the other to the eternal Carib summer. One morning at sunrise as we were breaking camp, I was startled to hear one of our party, a frontiersman born, intoning these words of sombre majesty:--

"'Tis but a tent where takes his one day's rest A Sultan to the realm of death addressed. The Sultan rises and the dark Ferrash Strikes, and prepares it for another guest."

I thought that sublime setting of primeval forest and pouring cañon was worthy of the lines; I am sure the dewless, crystalline air never vibrated to strains of more solemn music.

Certainly our poet can never be numbered among the great popular writers of all times. He has told no story; he has never unpacked his heart in public; he has never thrown the reins on the neck of the winged horse, and let his imagination carry him where it listed. "Ah! the crowd must have emphatic warrant." Its suffrages are not for the cool, collected observer, whose eye no glitter can ever dazzle, no mist suffuse. The many cannot but resent that air of lofty intelligence, that pale and subtle smile. But he will hold a place forever among that limited number who, like Lucretius and Epicurus--without rage or defiance, even without unbecoming mirth--look deep into the tangled mysteries of things; refuse credence to the absurd, and allegiance to the arrogant authority, sufficiently conscious of fallibility to be tolerant of all opinions; with a faith too wide for doctrine and a benevolence untrammelled by creed, too wise to be wholly poets, and yet too surely poets to be implacably wise. [Loud cheers.]

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

NATIONAL SENTIMENTS

[Speech of Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States, at the first annual banquet of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1880. The President of the Society, Benjamin D. Silliman, in introducing him, said: "Gentlemen, we are honored this evening by the presence of an illustrious descendant of New England, the Chief Magistrate of the Nation. [Cheers.] He is about retiring from his high position, with the respect, admiration and the gratitude of the people for the great wisdom, the pure purpose, the steady will and the unwavering firmness with which he has administered the government, preserved its honor and secured its property. [Loud cheers.] I propose to you, as our first toast, 'The President of the United States.'"]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--We have often heard, we often hear, the phrase "New England ideas." It is said, and I think said truly, that these ideas have a large and growing influence in shaping the affairs of the people of the United States. It is not meant, I suppose, that the principles referred to in this phrase, are peculiar to New England, but merely that in New England they are generally accepted, and that perhaps there they had their first practical illustration. These ideas, these principles generally termed New England ideas, and New England principles, it seems to me, have had much to do with that prosperity which we are now enjoying, and about which we are perhaps apt to be too boastful, but for which it is certain we cannot be too grateful. [Applause.]

The subject, New England ideas, is altogether too large a one for me, or anybody, to discuss this evening. If it were to be done at length, in protracted speaking, we have our friends here, able and with a reputation for capacity in that way. Our friend, Mr. Evarts, for example [applause], Mr. Beecher [applause], and I am confident that I shall be excused for naming in this connection, above all, our friend General Grant. [Loud applause.]

Leaving then to them the discussion of the larger topic, I must content myself with the humbler duty of merely naming the New England ideas to which I refer.

New England believes that every man and woman, under the law ought to have an equal chance and an equal hope with every other man and woman [applause], and believes that in a country where that is secured individuals and society will have their highest development and the largest allotment of human happiness. [Applause.] New England believes that equal rights can be best secured in a country where every child is provided freely with the means of education. [Applause.] New England believes that the road--the only road, the sure road--to unquestioned credit and a sound financial condition is the exact and punctual fulfilment of every pecuniary obligation, public and private [applause], according to its letter and spirit. [Applause.] New England believes in the home, and in the virtues that make home happy [cries of "Good!"], and New England will tolerate, so far as depends on her, no institutions and no practices in any state or territory which are inconsistent with the sacredness of the family relation. [Cries of "Good!"] New England cherishes the sentiment of nationality and believes in a general government strong enough to maintain its authority, to enforce the laws and to preserve and to perpetuate the Union. [Applause.]

Now, with these New England ideas everywhere accepted and prevailing--to repeat, with just and equal laws, administered under the watchful eyes of educated voters; with honesty in all moneyed transactions; with the New England home and the New England family as the foundation of society; with national sentiments prevailing everywhere in the country; we shall not lack that remaining crowning merit of New England life which lends to every peopled landscape its chief interest and glory, the spires pointing heavenward that tell to every man who sees them that the descendants of the Pilgrims still hold to and cherish, and love that which brought their fathers to this continent, which they here sought and here found--freedom to worship God. [Long-continued applause.]

JOSEPH C. HENDRIX

THE WAMPUM OF THE INDIANS

[Speech of Joseph C. Hendrix at the fifteenth annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1894. The President, Robert D. Benedict, introducing the speaker, said: "I do not remember ever to have heard at any of the New England festivals which I have attended any discussion of the currency questions which plagued the Pilgrims. We cannot doubt that they had such questions for such questions must arise where there are different currencies. But the attention of our committee this year has naturally been drawn in that direction, and they have selected as the next subject one of the currencies with which the Pilgrims had to deal: 'The Wampum of the Indians.' Upon this subject they have invited the Hon. Joseph C. Hendrix to speak. Doubtless he may draw from that subject lessons that will be of interest and of use for the present day."]