Part 13

He has rarely been able to advance as rapidly or as far as he wished; and more than once he has gone by a way that few of us liked. But if he was not always right, he has been courageous enough to set himself right. If he made a mistake in our affairs when he said Jefferson Davis had founded a nation, he offered reparation when he secured the Geneva Arbitration, and loyally paid its award. If he made a mistake in Irish affairs in early attempts at an unwise coercion he more than made amends when he led that recent magnificent struggle in Parliament and before the English people, which ended in a defeat, it is true, but a defeat more brilliant than many victories and more hopeful for Ireland. [Applause.]

And over what a length of road has he led the English people! From rotten boroughs to household suffrage; from a government of classes to a government more truly popular than any other in the world outside of Switzerland and the United States. Then consider the advance on Irish questions. From the iniquitous burden of a gigantic and extravagant church establishment, imposed upon the people of whom seven-eighths were of hostile faith, to disestablishment; from the principle stated by Lord Palmerston with brutal frankness that "tenant-right is landlord's wrong," to judicial rents and the near prospect of tenant ownership on fair terms; from the arbitrary arrests of Irish leaders to the alliance of the Prime Minister and ruling party with the prisoner of Kilmainham Jail! [Loud cheers.] It has been no holiday parade, the leadership on a march like that. Long ago Mr. Disraeli flung at him the exultant taunt that the English people had had enough of his policy of confiscation; and so it proved for a time, for Mr. Disraeli turned him out. But Mr. Gladstone knew far better than his great rival did the deep and secret springs of English action, and he never judged from the temper of the House or a tour of the London drawing-rooms. Society, indeed, always disapproved of him, as it did of those kindred spirits, the anti-slavery leaders of American politics. But the frowns of Fifth Avenue and Beacon Street have not dimmed the fame of Sumner and Chase; of Seward and Lincoln [a voice: "And of Wendell Phillips." Cheers]; nor does Belgravia control the future of Mr. Gladstone's career any more than it has been able to hinder his past.

More than any other statesman of his epoch, he has combined practical skill in the conduct of politics with a steadfast appeal to the highest moral considerations. To a leader of that sort defeats are only stepping-stones, and the end is not in doubt. A phrase once famous among us has sometimes seemed to me fit for English use about Ireland. A great man, a very great man, whose name sheds lasting honor upon our city said in an impulsive moment--that he "never wanted to live in a country where the one-half was pinned to the other by bayonets." If Mr. Gladstone ever believed in thus fastening Ireland to England, he has learned a more excellent way. Like Greeley he would no doubt at the last fight, if need be, for the territorial integrity of his country. But he has learned the lesson Charles James Fox taught nearly a hundred years before: "The more Ireland is under Irish Government, the more she will be bound to English interests." That precept he has been trying to reduce to practice. God grant the old statesman life and light to see the sure end of the work he has begun! [Loud applause.]

I must not sit down without a word more to express the personal gratification I feel in seeing an old comrade here as your guest. Twelve or fourteen years ago he did me the honor to fill for a time an important place on the staff of my newspaper. With what skill and power he did his work; with what readiness and ample store of information you need not be told, for the anonymous editorial writer of those days is now known to the English-speaking world as the brilliant historian of "Our Own Times." Those of us who knew him then have seen his sacrifice of private interests and personal tastes for the stormy life of an Irish member of Parliament, and have followed with equal interest and admiration his bold yet prudent and high-minded Parliamentary career. He has done all that an Irishman ought for his country; he has done it with as little sympathy or encouragement for the policy of dynamite and assassination in England as we have had for bomb-throwing in Chicago. [Loud and prolonged applause.]

W. L. ROBBINS

THE PULPIT AND THE BAR

[Speech of Rev. W. L. Robbins at the annual dinner of the New York State Bar Association, given in the City of Albany, N. Y., January 20, 1891, in response to the sentiment, "The Relation of the Pulpit to the Bar." Matthew Hale presided.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--I am so dazed at the temerity which has ventured to put so soporific a subject as "The Pulpit" at so late an hour in the evening, that I can only conceive of but one merit in any response to the present toast, and that is brevity. I had always supposed that the pulpit was "sleepy" enough in its effect upon men in the early hours of the day, at least that was my conclusion, in so far as it has been my privilege to see men present, at pulpit ministrations, leaving us as they do for the most part to preach to women and children. Shall I confess that the feeling came over me during the first part of the evening that I was rather out of place among so many laymen, alone as a representative of the clergy; but later, I found confidence through a sense of kinship in suffering, for is it not true that we represent two of the best abused professions in the world? I do not mean by that, abuse _ab extra_. I am told indeed, occasionally, that the pulpit is effete, that its place has been filled by the press and lecture platform, that there is no further use for it. But I do not know that I have heard abuse _ab extra_ of the Bar, unless some ill-natured person should read it into the broad Scotch pronunciation of an old friend of mine who used to say to me, "Ah, the lieyers, the lieyers."

But what we must needs guard against is abuse from within. In the first place we are a good deal given to self-congratulation. I use the first person plural and not the second person; I remember a friend of mine, a distinguished clergyman in Boston, an Englishman, who once ventured to preach upon political corruption in the municipal government, and the next day he had the audacity to drop into the office of one of the business men of his congregation and say, "What did you think of that sermon?"--a very dangerous question, by the way, always to ask--and the reply came promptly, "You had better go and be naturalized so that you can say 'we sinners,' instead of 'you sinners.'" [Laughter.] Since that time, from the pulpit or from any other place, I have hesitated to say, "You sinners," and I will promise to say "we sinners" to-night.

But truly the pulpit and the Bar, in their ideal, are, as it were, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," a witness to the eternal truth. Are they not? The pulpit is sent forth to herald the love of God, and the Bar is sent forth to herald the justice of God; but they don't always succeed. I can speak from experience for the pulpit, that the position of authority, the claim of a divine mission, is often turned into the excuse for the airing of a man's individual fads, and is naught but a cloak for pretentious ignorance. [Applause.] And for the Bar, I wonder if I might venture to quote the definition of legal practice which was given me the other night, apropos of this toast, by a distinguished representative of the New York Bar Association, that it was "a clever device for frustrating justice, and getting money into the lawyer's pocket." [Laughter.] But if it be true that we have a mission, it is equally true that we must join hands if we are going to accomplish that mission. I am tired of hearing about the Pulpit as the voice of the public conscience. I do not know why the Bar should not be the voice of the public conscience quite as much as the Pulpit. If there are laws on the statute book that are not obeyed, I don't know why the clergy should make public protest rather than the lawyers, who are representatives of the law. [Applause.] And if principles of our Constitution are being subtly invaded to-day under the mask, for instance, of State subsidies or national subsidies to sectarian institutions either of learning or of charity, I don't know why the first voice of warning should come from the Pulpit rather than from the Bar. Indeed, when the clergy initiate reforming movements it always seems to me as though there is need of rather more ballast in the boat, need of one of those great wheels which act as a check on the machinery in an engine; and the best fly-wheel is the layman. The tendency, you know, of the Pulpit is toward an unpractical sort of idealism. Its theories are all very good, but my professor in physics used to tell me that the best mathematical theory is put out of gear by friction when you come to illustrate it in practical physics, and so with even the best kind of theoretical philanthropy. The theoretical solution of the problems, social and economic, which confront us is put "out of gear" by facts, about which, alas, the clergy are not as careful as they are about their theory; and, therefore, I plead for a lay enthusiasm. But surely there is no better lay element than the legal to act as ballast for the clergy in pleading the cause of philanthropy and piety and righteousness.

Then I would suggest first of all, that the Pulpit needs to leave the A, B, C's of morality, about which it has been pottering so long, and begin to spell words and sometimes have a reading lesson in morals. That is, that it should apply its principles to practical living issues and questions of the day. And I plead to the lawyers to come out once in awhile from the technicalities of practice, and from their worship of cleverness and success, and look to the mission which is laid on them, namely, to bear witness to justice and righteousness. [Applause.] My toast would be "Common sense in the Pulpit and a love of righteousness at the Bar."

JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE

THE PRESS

[Speech of James Jeffrey Roche at the banquet of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, New York City, March 17, 1894. John D. Crimmins presided. Mr. Roche, as editor of the "Boston Pilot," responded for "The Press."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE FRIENDLY SONS OF ST. PATRICK:--I am deeply sensible of the honor you have done me in inviting me to respond to the toast which has just been read.

The virtues of the Press are so many and so self-evident that they scarcely need a eulogist. Even the newspapers recognize and admit them. If you had asked a New York journalist to sing the praises of his craft, his native and professional modesty would have embarrassed his voice. If you had asked a Chicagoan, the honorable chairman would have been compelled to resort to cloture before the orator got through. If you had asked a Philadelphian, he would have been in bed by this hour.

Therefore, you wisely went to the city which not only produces all the virtues--but puts them up in cans, for export to all the world. We do not claim to know everything, in Boston--but we do know where to find it. We have an excellent newspaper press, daily and weekly, and should either or both ever, by any chance, fail to know anything--past, present, or to come--we have a Monday Lectureship, beside which the Oracle of Delphi was a last year's almanac. [Applause.]

I met a man, on the train, yesterday--a New York man (he said he was)--of very agreeable manners. He told me what his business was, and when I told him my business in New York, he surprised me by asking: "What are you going to say to them in your speech that will be real sassy, and calculated to make all their pet corns ache?" I told him I did not know what he meant, that of course I should say nothing but the most pleasant things I could think of; that, in fact, I intended to read my speech, lest, in the agitation of the moment, I might overlook some complimentary impromptu little touch. Then he laughed and said: "Why, that isn't the way to do at all--in New York. It is easy to see you are a stranger, and don't read the papers. The correct thing nowadays is for the guest to criticise his entertainers. Mayor So-and-So always does it. And only last year--it was at an Irish banquet, too--the speaker of the evening, a Down-Easter like yourself, just spilled boiling vitriol over the whole company, and rubbed it in."

I told him I didn't believe that story, and asked him to tell me the gentleman's name. And he only answered me, evasively: "I didn't say he was a gentleman."

I trust I know better than to say anything uncomplimentary about the Press of New York, which compiles, or constructs, news for the whole Continent, not only before our slower communities have heard of the things chronicled, but often, with commendable enterprise, before they have happened.

I admire the Press of New York. There are a great many Boston men on it, and I have no mission to reform it. In New York, when you have a surplus of journalistic talent, you export it to London, where it is out of place--some of it. The feverish race for priority, which kills off so many American journalists, sometimes, it would seem, almost before their time (but that is a matter of opinion), is unknown in London. A man who reads the "London Times," regularly and conscientiously, is guaranteed forever against insomnia. London "Punch" is a paper which the severest ascetic may read, all through Lent, without danger to his sobriety of soul.

London gets even with you, too. You send her an Astor, and she retaliates with a Stead. We ought to deal gently with Mr. Stead; for he says that we are all children of the one "Anglo-Saxon" family--without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude. He avers that England looks upon America as a brother, and that may be so. It is not easy, at this distance of time, to know just how Romulus looked upon Remus, how Esau looked upon Jacob, how Cain looked upon Abel--but I have no doubt that it was in about the same light that England looks upon America--fraternally! But she ought not to afflict us with Mr. Stead. We have enough to bear without him.

We know that the Press has its faults and its weaknesses. We can see them every day, in our miserable contemporaries, and we do not shirk the painful duty of pointing them out. We know that it has also virtues, manifold, and we do not deny them, when an appreciative audience compliments us upon them. A conscientious journalist never shrinks from the truth, even when it does violence to his modesty. In fact, he tells the truth under all circumstances, or nearly all. If driven to the painful alternative of choosing between that which is new and that which is true, he wisely decides that "truth" is mighty, and will prevail, whereas news won't keep. Nevertheless, it is a safe rule not to believe everything that you see in the papers. Advertisers are human, and liable to err.

Lamartine predicted, long ago, that before the end of the present century the Press would be the whole literature of the world. His prediction is almost verified already. The multiplication and the magnitude of newspapers present, not a literary, but an economic problem. The Sunday paper alone has grown, within a decade, from a modest quarto to a volume of 48, 60, 96, 120 pages, with the stream steadily rising and threatening the levees on both banks. At a similar rate of expansion in the next ten years, it will be made up of not less than 1,000 pages, and the man who undertakes to read it will be liable to miss First Mass.

The thoughtful provision of giving away a "farm coupon" with every number may avert trouble for a time, but it will be only for a time. The reader will need a farm, on which to spread out and peruse his purchase; but the world is small, and land has not the self-inflating quality of paper.

But to speak more seriously: Is modern journalism, then, nothing but a reflection of the frivolity of the day, of the passing love of notoriety? I say no! I believe that the day of sensational journalism, of the blanket sheet and the fearful woodcut, is already passing away. Quantity cannot forever overcome quality, in that or any other field. When we think of the men who have done honor to the newspaper profession, we do not think so proudly of this or that one who "scooped" his contemporaries with the first, or "exclusive," report of a murder or a hanging, but of men like the late George W. Childs, whom all true journalists honor and lament.

We think of the heroes of the pen, who carried their lives in their hands as they went into strange, savage countries, pioneers of civilization. It would be invidious to mention names, where the roll is so long and glorious; but I think, at the moment, of O'Donovan, Forbes, Stanley, Burnaby, Collins, and our own Irish-American, MacGahan, the great-hearted correspondent, who changed the political map of Eastern Europe by exposing the Bulgarian atrocities. The instinct which impelled those men was the same which impelled Columbus.

I think, in another field, of the noblest man I have ever known, the truest, most chivalrous gentleman, a newspaper man, an editor--I am proud to say, an Irish-American editor--the memory of whose honored name, I well know, is the only excuse for my being here to-night--John Boyle O'Reilly! You have honored his name more than once here to-night, and in honoring him you honor the profession which he so adorned.

D. B. ST. JOHN ROOSA

THE SALT OF THE EARTH

[Speech of Dr. D. B. St. John Roosa, as President of the Holland Society of New York, at the eleventh annual dinner of the Society, New York City, January 15, 1896.]

GENTLEMEN, MEMBERS OF THE HOLLAND SOCIETY, AND OUR HONORED GUESTS:--My first duty is to welcome to our Board the representatives of the various societies who honor us by their presence: St. George's, St. Nicholas, New England, St. Andrew's, Colonial Order, and Colonial Wars, Southern Society, the Holland Society welcomes you most heartily. I ought to say that the Holland Society, as at present constituted, could run a Police Board [applause], furnish the Mayors for two cities, and judges to order, to decide on any kind of a case. As a matter of fact, when they get hard up down-town for a judge, they just send up to the man who happens to be President of the Holland Society and say "Now we want a judge," and we send Van Hoesen, Beekman, Truax, or Van Wyck. [Applause.] They are all right. They are Dutch, and they will do. [Laughter.] All the people say it does not make any difference about their politics, so long as the blood is right.

Now, gentlemen, seriously, I thank you very sincerely for the honor which you have conferred upon me--and which I was not able, on account of circumstances entirely beyond my control, to acknowledge at the annual meeting of the Society--in making me your President. I do not think there is any honor in the world that compares with it, and if you think over the names of the Presidents of this Society you may imagine that a doctor, especially knowing what the Dutch in South Africa think of doctors just now [laughter and applause], would have a mighty slim chance to come in against a Van Vorst, a Roosevelt, a Van Hoesen, a Beekman, a Van Wyck, or a Van Norden. But my name is not Jameson. [Laughter.]

Gentlemen, there seems to be an impression that the Holland Society, because it does not have a Club-house--and it may have a Club-house, that remains for you to decide; and because it does not have a great many other things, has no reason for its existence. But, gentlemen, there is one sufficient reason for the existence of the Hollanders in a Society. We have eight hundred and forty members, and each one of us has a function--to teach our neighboring Yankees just exactly what we are, whence we came, and where we mean to go. [Laughter and applause.] The colossal ignorance of the ordinary New Englander [laughter and applause]--I mean in regard to the Dutch [laughter]--is something that I would delineate were it not for the presence of the President of the Mayflower Society. [Renewed laughter.] Why, it was only the other night that at one of these entertainments when I was representing you and doing the best I could with my medal and my ribbon, that a friend came up to me and said: "You belong to the Holland Society, don't you?" I said, "Yes." "Well," he said, "you Dutch did lick us on the Excise question, didn't you?" [Great laughter and applause.] Now what are you going to do with a people like that? We got the credit of that thing, anyhow. [Renewed laughter.] There is a Governor of Connecticut here to-night [P. C. Lounsbury], and I was going to say something about Governors of Connecticut of years and years ago. A man could not properly relate the history of New Amsterdam without remarking on the Governors of Connecticut, but out of respect to the distinguished gentleman, whom we all delight to honor, I shall draw it very mild. I shall only tell one or two things that those Governors of Connecticut used to do. There was one of them, I have forgotten his name and I am glad I have [laughter], who used to say in all his letters to his subordinates when they were pushing us to the wall and getting the English over to help them push: "Don't you say anything to those people, don't you talk to those people, but always keep crowding the Dutch." [Laughter.] That is what a Connecticut Governor gave as official advice years ago. And they did crowd us. But Governor Lounsbury told me that if they really had their rights Manhattan Island would belong to Connecticut. So you see they are crowding the Dutch still. [Laughter.]