Modern Eloquence Volume Iii Part 32

[Enthusiastic applause.]

ROBERT C. WINTHROP

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

[Speech of Robert C. Winthrop made at the public dinner given to Amin Bey by the merchants of Boston, Ma.s.s., November 4, 1850.]

MR. PRESIDENT:--I am greatly honored by the sentiment just proposed, and I beg my good friend, the Vice-President [Hon. Benjamin Seaver], to accept my hearty thanks for the kind and complimentary terms in which he has presented my name to the company. I am most grateful for the opportunity of meeting with so large a number of the intelligent and enterprising merchants of Boston, and of uniting with them in a tender of deserved hospitality, and in a tribute of just respect, to the Commissioner of his Imperial Majesty, the Sultan of Turkey.

And yet, I cannot but reflect, even as I p.r.o.nounce these words, how strangely they would have sounded in the ears of our fathers not many generations back, or even in our own ears not many years ago. A deserved tender of hospitality, a just tribute of respect, to the Representative of the Grand Turk! Sir, the country from which your amiable and distinguished guest has come, was not altogether unknown to some of the early American discoverers and settlers. John Smith--do not smile too soon, Mr. President, for though the name has become proverbially generic in these latter days, it was once identified and individualized as the name of one of the most gallant navigators and captains which the world has ever known--that John Smith who first gave the cherished name of New England to what the Pilgrims of the Mayflower called "these Northern parts of Virginia"--he, I say, was well acquainted with Turkey; and two centuries and a half ago, he gave the name of a Turkish lady to one of the capes of our own Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. But he knew Turkey as a prison and a dungeon, and he called what is now Cape Ann, Cape Tragabigzanda, only to commemorate his affection for one who had soothed the rigors of a long and loathsome captivity.

Nor was Turkey an unknown land to at least one of those Winthrops of the olden time, with whom the Vice-President has so kindly connected me. In turning over some old family papers since my return home, I have stumbled on the original autograph of a note from John Winthrop, the younger, dated "December 26th, 1628, at the Castles of the h.e.l.lespont,"

whither he had gone, as is supposed, as the Secretary of Sir Peter Wich, the British Amba.s.sador at Constantinople. The a.s.sociations of that day, however, with those remote regions, were by no means agreeable, and I should hardly dare to dwell longer upon them on this occasion and in this presence. I rejoice that events have occurred to break the spell of that hereditary prejudice, which has so long prevailed in the minds of not a few of us, toward the Ottoman Empire. I rejoice that our a.s.sociations with Turkey are no longer those only of the plague and the bowstring; that we are encouraged and authorized to look to her hereafter for something better than a little coa.r.s.e wool for our blankets, or a few figs for our dessert, or even a little opium or rhubarb for our medicine-chests; that, in a word, we are encouraged and warranted to look to her, under the auspices and administration of her young, gallant, and generous Sultan, for examples of reform, of toleration, of liberality, of a magnanimous and chivalrous humanity, which are worthy of the admiration and imitation of all mankind. I rejoice, especially, that an occasion has been afforded for testifying the deep sense which is entertained throughout our country, of the n.o.ble conduct of the Sublime Porte in regard to the unfortunate exiles of Hungary.

The influence which the Ottoman Empire seems destined to exert over the relations of Eastern and Western Europe, is of the most interesting and important character; and, while we all hold steadfastly to the great principle of neutrality which Washington established and enforced, we yet cannot suppress our satisfaction that this influence is now in the hands of one who seems determined to wield it fearlessly for the best interests of civilization and humanity.

And now, sir, let us hope that our distinguished friend, Amin Bey, may return home with some not less favorable impressions of our own land. Of our enterprise, of our industry, of our immense material production, of our rapid progress in arts and improvements of every kind, of our vast territorial extent, he cannot fail to testify. Let us hope that he may be able to speak also of internal order, of domestic tranquillity, of wise and just laws, faithfully administered and promptly obeyed, of a happy, contented, and united people, commending by their practice and example, as well as by their principles and precepts, the inst.i.tutions under which they live.

The distinguished gentleman who preceded me [Mr. Webster], and whom I have been under the disadvantage of following in other scenes as well as here, has spoken of the Union of these States. There is no language so strong or so emphatic, which even he can use, as to the importance of preserving that Union, which does not meet with a prompt and cordial echo in my own bosom. To the eyes of Amin Bey, and to the eyes of all foreign nations, we are indeed but one country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. To them there is no Boston or New York, no Carolina or Louisiana. Our commerce goes forth under one and the same flag, whether from the Bay of Ma.s.sachusetts or from the "Golden Gate" of California.

Under that flag, it has been protected, prospered, and extended beyond example. Under that flag, new fields are opening to it, and new triumphs are before it. May our distinguished guest take home with him an a.s.surance, founded upon all that he has seen and all that he has heard, of the resolution of us all, that the flag of our Union shall still and always remain one and the same, from ocean to ocean, untorn and untarnished, proof alike against everything of foreign a.s.sault and everything of domestic dissension! [Great applause.]

JOHN SERGEANT WISE

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

[Speech of John S. Wise at the eleventh annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 20, 1890. The President, Willard Bartlett, occupied the chair. He called upon Mr.

Wise to speak to the toast, "Captain John Smith, the Ruler of Virginia, and Admiral of New England," saying: "It was not without a purpose that your committee arranged the order of speaking this evening. I am sure that the gentlemen who have already addressed you will take it in good part, if I say we knew that, by putting one name at the end of the programme, we should be sure to hold the audience here till the doxology. Now a speaker who bears the name of the first ruler of Virginia I ever knew anything about, will address you upon Virginia's still earlier ruler, Captain John Smith."]

MR. CHAIRMAN:--It is one of the peculiarities of Americans, that they attempt to solve the unsolvable problem of successfully mixing gastronomy and oratory. In chemistry there are things known as incompatibles, which it is impossible to blend and at the same time preserve their original characteristics. It is impossible to have as good a dinner as we have had served to-night, and preserve the intellectual faculties of your guests so that they may be seen at their best. I am not unmindful that in the menu the courses grew shorter until they culminated in the pungent and brief episode of cheese, and so I take it that as to the oratory here on tap, you desire it to become gradually more brief and more pungent.

Now, the task of condensing into a five-minute speech two hundred and seventy years of the history of America, is something that has been a.s.signed to me, and I propose to address myself to it without further delay. [Laughter]

John Smith was at one time President of Virginia, and afterward Admiral of New England, and ever since then, until lately, New England and Virginia have been trying to pull loose from each other, so as not to be under the same ruler. [Laughter and applause.] John Smith was a G.o.dsend to the American settlers, because he was a plain man in a company of t.i.tled nonent.i.ties, and after they had tried and failed in every effort to make or perpetuate an American colony, plain John Smith, a democrat, without a t.i.tle, took the helm and made it a success. [Laughter.]

Then and there, and ever since, we laid aside the Reginald-Trebizond-Percys of n.o.bility, and stuck to the plain John Smiths, honest citizens, of capacity and character. By his example we learned that "Kind hearts are more than coronets," and simple men of worth are infinitely better than t.i.tled vagabonds of Norman blood.

[Applause.] It is almost three centuries since a tiny vessel, not larger than a modern fishing-smack, turned her head to the sunset across an unknown sea, for the land of conjecture. The ship's company, composed of pa.s.sengers from England, that wonderful nest of human wanderers, that splendid source of the best civilization of the world, cast anchor by chance in a n.o.ble bay for which they had not sailed, and settled a colony; not with any particularly high or n.o.ble object, but really in pursuit of gold, and searching for a South Sea which they never found.

The voyage had been projected without any other object than the acc.u.mulation of wealth, which wealth was to be carried back to the old country and enjoyed in that England which they loved, and to which their eyes ever turned backward with affection, reverence, and the hope of return. This band of younger sons and penniless n.o.bility, attempted to make a settlement under the charter known as the London charter of Virginia; and while we find to-day men sneering at John Smith, the fact remains that he alone was enabled by his strong personality, by his sterling, individual worth, to resist the savages, to make the lazy work, to furnish food for the weak and sickly, to re-inspire those who had lost hope, and to firmly establish a settlement in Virginia. His reward was what? Sedition in his own camp, ingrat.i.tude among his own followers, misrepresentation to his patrons, disappointment, disease, and poverty to himself; a return to England and posthumous fame. But his bulldog fangs, the fangs of that English blood which once sunk in the throat of a savage land remain forever, were placed upon America, to mark it as another conquest and another triumph of Anglo-Saxon colonization. Three years of peace and quiet in England were not to his taste. His mother's spirit craved new adventures, and he sought them in sea voyages to the north. Although his task was a much less difficult one, and not quite so prominent as the task he had accomplished in Virginia, he prepared the way for the settlement at Plymouth Rock. To his t.i.tle of President of Virginia was added the t.i.tle of Admiral of New England, because this John Smith, without a pedigree, except such as was blazoned on his shield by his slaughter of three Turks, turned his attention from the land to the sea, sailed the colder waters of the north, located the colonies of New England, named your own Boston, and the result of his voyages and reports were the Plymouth charter and settlement. So it is that we have a common founder of the settlements of this country. Of all the gallants who embarked in the first adventure, all disappeared save John Smith, who bore the plainest and commonest name that human imagination can devise. He became the patron saint of American civilization, as much yours as ours, and as much ours as yours.

[Laughter and applause.]

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: We had one founder; we came from one master-mind; one great spirit was the source of both our settlements; and this initial fact in our histories has seemed to inspire the American people through all the centuries with the sentiment that our union should be eternal in spite of all disturbing circ.u.mstances.

[Applause.] When I said, in a light way, that old Virginia and Ma.s.sachusetts had sought to rend themselves asunder, it was scarcely true. They have too much that is glorious in common to be aught but loving sisters. The men who are before me will not forget that the settlers of the London colony of Virginia, and settlers of the Plymouth colony of Ma.s.sachusetts, have been at the front of every great movement which has agitated this nation from its birth. When it came to the question of whether we should dissolve the political ties that bound us to the British King, Ma.s.sachusetts Bay and the colony of Virginia were the first to form their Committees of Safety, exchange their messages of mutual support, and strengthen the weak among their sister colonies.

[Applause.] When it came to the time that tried men's souls in the Revolution, it was the men of Virginia and the men of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay that furnished the largest quotas of revolutionary soldiers who achieved the independence of the American colonies.

When it came to the formation of a federal union, Virginia, with her Washington, gave the first President, and Ma.s.sachusetts, with her Adams, stepped proudly to the front with the first Vice-President and second President. [Applause.] In later years, when differences came--which differences need not be discussed--every man here knows what part Virginia and Ma.s.sachusetts bore. It was a part which, however much we may differ with each other, bespoke the origin of the two colonies, and told that true manhood was there to do and die for what it believed was right. When that struggle was ended, the first to clasp hands in mutual friendship and affection were Virginia and Ma.s.sachusetts. If we were to blot from the history or geography of the Nation the deeds or territory of the ancient dominions of John Smith, President of Virginia and Admiral of New England, a beggarly record of area would be left, in spite of the glorious records of other sections in recent years.

The history of America is to me not only of deep and absorbing interest in its every detail, but it is a romance; it is a fascinating detail of wonderful development, the like of which cannot be found in the annals of civilization from the remotest time. We may go back to the time when the curtain rises on the most ancient civilization of the East, and there is nothing to compare with it. We may take up not only the real, but the romantic history of modern European progress, and there is nothing like American history for myself. Taking up the story of the Quaker invasion of Ma.s.sachusetts as early as 1659, I find Lydia Wardell, daughter of Isaac Perkins, a freeman of the colony, whipped in Boston, because she had ceased to be a Puritan and had become a Quakeress.

Turning then to the history of Virginia in 1663, I find Colonel Edmund Scarburgh riding at the head of the King's troops into the boundaries of Maryland, placing the broad arrows of the King on the houses of the Quakers, and punishing them soundly for non-conformity. Upon the question of who was right and who was wrong in these old feuds, there are doubtless men who, even to this day, have deep prejudices. Fancy how conflicting are the sentiments of a man in 1890, as to their merits, when he reflects, as I do, that Lydia Wardell was his grandmother, and Colonel Scarburgh his grandfather. [Applause and laughter.]

How absurd seems any comparison between the Puritan and Cavalier settlers of America. There they are, with all their faults, and all their virtues. Others may desire to contrast them. I do not. I stand ready to do battle against anybody who abuses either. Their conjoint blood has produced a Nation, the like of which no man living before our day had ever fancied. Nearly three centuries of intermingling and intermarrying, has made the traditions and the hopes of either the heritage and aspiration of us all. Common sufferings, common triumphs, common pride, make the whole glorious history the property of every American citizen, and it is provincial folly to glorify either faction at the expense of the other.

We stand to-night on the pinnacle of the third Century of American development. Look back to the very beginning. There stands the grizzled figure of John Smith, the Pioneer--President of Virginia, and Admiral of New England. Still united, we look about us and behold a nation blessed with peace and plenty, crowned with honor, and with boundless opportunity of future aggrandizement. The seed planted by John Smith still grows. The voice of John Smith still lives. That voice has been swelled into the mighty chorus of 60,000,000 Americans singing the song of United States. We look forward to a future whose possibilities stagger all conjecture, to a common ruler of John Smith's ancient dominions; to a common destiny, such as he mapped out for us. And with devout and heartfelt grat.i.tude to him, a reunited land proclaims, "Whom G.o.d hath joined together, let no man put asunder." [Great applause.]

THE LEGAL PROFESSION

[Speech of John S. Wise at the annual dinner of the New York State Bar a.s.sociation, Albany, N. Y., January 20, 1891. Matthew Hale, the President, introduced Mr. Wise as follows; "The next sentiment in order was, by mistake, omitted from the printed list of sentiments which is before you. The next sentiment is 'The Legal Profession,'

and I call upon a gentleman to respond to that toast who, I venture to say, has practised law in more States of this Union than any other gentleman present. I allude to the orator of the day, the Hon. John S. Wise [applause], formerly of Virginia, but now a member of the Bar a.s.sociation of the State of New York."]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE BAR:--It may not be true that I have practised law in more States of this Union than any one present, but it is certainly true that I never did as much speaking in the same length of time, without charging a fee for it, as I have done within the last twenty-four hours. [Laughter.] At two o'clock this morning I was in attendance, in the city of New York, upon a ghost dance of the Confederate veterans; at two o'clock this evening I resolved myself into a deep, careful, and circ.u.mspect lawyer, and now I am with the boys, and propose to have a good time. [Laughter.] Now, you know, this scene strikes me as ridiculous--our getting here together and glorifying ourselves and n.o.body to pay for it. My opinion is, that the part of wisdom is to bottle this oratory and keep it on tap at $5 a minute.

[Laughter.] The Legal Profession--why, of course, we are the best fellows in the world. Who is here to deny it? It reminds me of an anecdote told by an old politician in Virginia, who said that one day, with his man, he was riding to Chesterfield court, and they got discussing the merits of a neighbor, Mr. Beasley, and he says, "Isaac, what do you think of Mr. Beasley?" "Well," he says, "Ma.r.s.e Frank, I reckon he is a pretty good man." "Well, there is one thing about Mr.

Beasley, he is always humbling himself." He says, "Ma.r.s.e Frank, you are right; I don't know how you is, but I always mistrusts a man that runs hisself down." [Laughter.] He says, "I don't know how you is, Ma.r.s.e Frank, but I tell you how it is with me: this n.i.g.g.e.r scarcely ever says no harm against hisself." So I say it of the legal profession--this here n.i.g.g.e.r don't never scarcely say no harm against himself. [Great laughter.]

Of course we are the best profession in the world, but if any of our clients are standing at that door and listening to this oratory, I know what their reflection is. They are laughing in their sleeves and saying: "Watch him, watch him; did you ever hear lawyers talk as much for nothing? Watch them; it is the funniest scene I ever saw. There are a lot of lawyers with their hands in their own pockets." [Laughter.]

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, another thing. We are not fooling with any judges now. I know who I am talking to and how long I have been doing it. Sometimes you can fool a judge into letting you have more time than the rule allows; but with lawyers, enough is enough. We know exactly when to put on the brakes with each other. We are not now earning fees by the yard or charging by the minute, and when a man is through with what he has to say, it is time to sit down, and all I have to say in conclusion is, that the more I watch the legal profession and observe it, the more I am convinced that with the great responsibility, with the great trusts confided to it, with the great issues committed to its keeping, with the great power it has to direct public feeling and public sentiment, with the great responsibilities resulting, take it as a ma.s.s--and there are plenty of rascals in it--but take it as a ma.s.s, and measure it up, and G.o.d never made a n.o.bler body in these United States.

[Applause.]

EDWARD OLIVER WOLCOTT

THE BRIGHT LAND TO WESTWARD

[Speech of Edward O. Wolcott at the eighty-second annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1887.

The President, ex-Judge Horace Russell, introduced the speaker as follows: "It was an English lawyer who said that the farther he went West the more he was convinced that the wise men came from the East. We may not be so thoroughly convinced of this after we have heard the response to the next regular toast, 'The Pilgrim in the West.' I beg to introduce Mr. Edward O. Wolcott, of Colorado."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--It was with great diffidence that I accepted the invitation of your President to respond to a toast to-night. I realized my incapacity to do justice to the occasion, while at the same time I recognized the high compliment conveyed. I felt somewhat as the man did respecting the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy; he said he didn't know whether Lord Bacon wrote Shakespeare's works or not, but if he didn't, he missed the greatest opportunity of his life.

[Laughter.]

The West is only a larger, and in some respects a better, New England. I speak not of those rose gardens of culture, Missouri and Arkansas, but otherwise, generally of the States and Territories west of the Mississippi, and more particularly, because more advisedly, of Colorado, the youngest and most rugged of the-thirty-eight; almost as large in area as all New England and New York combined; "with room about her hearth for all mankind"; with fertile valleys, and with mines so rich and so plentiful that we occasionally, though reluctantly, dispose of one to our New York friends. [Laughter.] We have no very rich, no very poor, and no almshouses; and in the few localities where we are not good enough, New England Home Missionary Societies are rapidly bringing us up to the Plymouth Rock standard and making us face the Heavenly music.

[Laughter.] We take annually from our granite hills wealth enough to pay for the fertilizers your Eastern and Southern soils require to save them from impoverishment. We have added three hundred millions to the coinage of the world; and, although you call only for gold, we generously give you silver, too. [Laughter.] You are not always inclined to appreciate our efforts to swell the circulation, but none the less are we one with you in patriotic desire to see the revenues reformed, provided always that our own peculiar industries are not affected. Our mountains slope toward either sea, and in their shadowy depths we find not only hidden wealth, but inspiration and incentive to high thought and n.o.ble living, for Freedom has ever sought the recesses of the mountains for her stronghold, and her spirit hovers there; their snowy summits and the long, rolling plains are lightened all day long by the sunshine, and we are not only Colorado, but Colorado Claro! [Applause.]