His soul, and the world has come to Him, and every
knee has bowed, and every tongue confessed, there
will be no consideration of the question as to which
of the churches was nearest to the apostolic form.
It will be to the faithful ones out of all churches:
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

Is not this supreme loyalty to the holy catholic
church universal the church whose names are writ
ten in heaven? Is not that consistent? Is it im
pinged upon or hurt by love to my own church ? Not
at all, any more than the love I bear for the state
I live in impairs the sincerity or faithfulness of my
allegiance to that great Union o'f the states whose flag"



AT THE ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE 515

floats over us all. I do not think a man who does
not love his state, the city where he lives, the
neighbors who are about him, the home of his
father and mother who has not some special at
tachments will ever make a good citizen of the
United States. I believe this spirit, this discriminat
ing spirit, this spirit of love and fellowship has
been mightily set forward by this great conference.
The army will co-operate, the cavalry will not say
to the artillery: "We have no need of you," and
the artillery will be particularly careful to stop fir
ing when the cavalry charges. Of all the demoral
izing incidents that can happen to an army, the
worst is to be fired into by mistake for it can never
be done purposely by some of its own men. We
expect fire from the adversary; but when, as has
sometimes happened in a campaign in the timber or
brush, or in confusion, a supporting column, for
getting that men of their own flag are in front of
them, deliver their fire, no troops in the world can
stand it; it is demoralization; it is dismay. Breth
ren, we will take care as never before that we do
not stand in the way; that we do not by any possi
bility deliver a shot that shall find its mark in any
of the regiments that march under the banner of our
Lord.

And now, to these gentlemen who have so gra
ciously expressed the thanks of the visiting delegates
and missionaries, may I be permitted to say in your



5l6 VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT

behalf that we are all debtors. No one ever received
a prophet of God into his House that did not receive
more than he gave. You have brought to us these
precious women who have come from mission fields;
you have brought to us, into our hearts and into
our homes, sanctifying and inspiring influences with
which the breath that perished is not to be compared.
We part with you in sorrow, and yet, bitter as they
are, the Christian partings always are cheered by
the promise of the great gathering where all who
love the Lord shall see each other again. We thank
you for your gracious and instructive words; we
thank you for the inspiration you have given us;
we hope that you have caught from our hearts some
of the love we bear you, and that you will go back
to the Lord's appointed work stronger for our
prayers and for our sympathy.

And now, as we bring this meeting to a close,
may I not assure you all that the prayers of the
church in America will be offered with a frequency
and a fervor they have never had before, and that
the pockets and the purses of the American people
will be opened with a generosity they have never
shown before, to conduct this great world-work
a work which is to bring in the day when the king
doms of the earth shall become the kingdoms of our
Lord?

God bless you all, abide with you in your places,
strengthen your hearts, fill them with the converts



AT THE ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE 517

that He knows so well how to convert, and give you
success in your devoted efforts to make known His
name to those who are in darkness.



REMARKS AS PRESIDING OFFICER AT IN
DIANAPOLIS RAILROAD CHRISTIAN
ASSOCIATION ANNIVERSARY

On Sunday, Fall of 1900

I suppose the special work among railroad men
did not have its origin in any opinion that railroad
men were in greater need of the comforting and
strengthening influence of the gospel of Christ than
other men. Every man's need is so extreme in that
respect that we can not make comparisons. Per
haps rather it has its origin in the fact that those
who were managing these things thought that to get
hold of railroad men would be to occupy a strong
strategic position in the fight for good morals and
religion, because you are stirring about so much.
Knowledge increases when men go to and fro, and
most of you are going to and fro. The railroads
themselves are getting to understand that mechani
cal skill is not hurt any if it is backed up by good
moral character indeed, they are beginning to make
some requirement in that direction looking exclus-



RAILROAD CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 519

ively to the business side of railroad management,
not because they are Christians, but because railroad
property is safer in the hands of men who are re
sponsible. I fancy that a man who believes that he
will not only be applauded by the president of the
road, but will have the applause of the King of the
Universe the Lord God is not less apt to stay in
front when a collision is imminent. The man who
receives the religious idea that he may please God
in running a lathe or an engine that to do things
well and conscientiously, scrupulously, is pleasing
not only to the boss of the shop, but to God is a lit
tle more apt to be scrupulous and honest and care
ful and brave than if he did not believe these things.
So that there can be no doubt that the old idea about
railroad men, very much like that about the
"roustabouts" and mates on the old steamboats
when it was thought that steamboat men could not
manage "roustabouts" without an immense amount
of profanity that they must be rough is giv
ing way. It is not necessary. If you are picking
out a brave man now, you can't say: "Always take
the man that swears the most." There used to be
a thought of that kind in connection with soldiers
that a soldier must be a rough, boisterous, swear
ing, drinking man. But General Howard and others
took that notion out of the minds of men. It is the
conscientious, God-fearing soldier that will stay the
longest in a hot place.



'52O VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT

I am not here to make a speech, but only to ex
press by my presence and these few words my in
terest in this work and to assume formal direction of
the exercises of the afternoon.



"HAIL COLUMBIA" A LAND A SONG A

CLUB

AT THE COLUMBIA CLUB BANQUET, INDIANAPOLIS

December 31, 1900

My toast has great scope. I do not think of
anything that may not, without glaring inappropri-
ateness, be connected with it. A late speaker should
always choose such a toast. Where the antecedent
orators are addicted to ranging, it is the only way
to save an untrodden fence corner with a few clumps
of bunch grass dry but nutritious. I do not speak
of flowers, for I foresaw that there would not be
enough left for me to make a boutonniere after our
senators had been heard!

Columbia should have been the name of the
western hemisphere the republican half of the
world the hemisphere without a king on the
ground the reserved world, where God sent the
trodden spirits of men to be revived; to find, where
all things were primitive, man's primitive rights.

Royal prerogatives are plants that require a



522 VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT

walled garden and to be defended from the wild,
free growths that crowd and climb upon them.
Pomp and laced garments are incongruous in the
brush. Danger and hardships are commoners. The
man in front is the captain the royal commission
to the contrary notwithstanding. The platoon and
volley firing by the word would not do the open
order, one man to a tree, firing at his own will and
at a particular savage, was better. Out of this and
like calls to do things upon his own initiative the
free American was born. He thought he might get
along with kings and imperial parliaments if they
were benevolent, and did and allowed what he
wished, but they were forever doing their own pleas
ure, as the way of absolutism always is. And so
he found it necessary first to remonstrate and then
to resist.

Now a remonstrance implies an argument. The
acts complained of must be shown to have infringed
a right. At first he talked of English rights, but
it was not long until he began to talk about human
rights. The British parliament was, under British
law, supreme could repeal the Magna Charta. He
turned to the colonial charters, surely they were ir
revocable grants, but the crown courts held other
wise. What kings and parliaments had given, they
could take away. And so our fathers were driven
to claim divine endowment and to allow it to all
men, since God had made all of one blood. To



HAIL COLUMBIA

write the argument otherwise was to divest it of
its major premise. The grand conclusion no king
or parliament can rightfully take God's gift of lib
erty from any man was thus riveted to the eternal
throne itself. We made for our convenience an ex
ception in the case of the black man; but God erased
it with a sponge dipped in the white man's blood.

This divine law of individual liberty allows the
restraints that are necessary for the general good,
but it does not allow either a man or a civil com
munity to exploit for selfish gain another man or
another community.

The so-called Anglo-Saxon and especially the;
American branch of that great family should rev
erently and humbly thank God for the pre-eminent
power and influence He has given to it; for organ
ized freedom and for astounding wealth. Verily He
hath not dealt so with any other people. The gifts
of wealth and power, whether to man or nation, are,
however, to be soberly taken and wisely used.

I estimate the gift of the governing faculty to
be God's greatest gift to the Anglo-Saxon, and in
the constitution of the United States, with its di
vision of powers, its limitations upon the governing
departments and its sublime reservations in the in
terests of individual liberty, I see the highest achieve
ment of that most rare faculty.

I have no argument to make, here or anywhere,
against territorial expansion, but I do not, as some



524 VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT

do, look to expansion as the safest or more attract
ive avenue of national development. By the ad
vantages of abundant and cheap coal and iron, of
an enormous surplus of food products, and of inven
tion and economy in production, we are now lead
ing by a nose the original and the greatest of the
colonizing nations. Australia and New Zealand
loyally send their contingents to South Africa but
Great Britain can not hold the trades of her colo
nies against American offerings of a better or cheap
er product. The Central and South American
states, assured of our purpose not only to respect,
but to defend, their autonomy, and finding the peace
and social order which a closer and larger commer
cial intercourse with the world will bring, offer to
our commerce a field the full development of which
will realize the Eldorado. Hail to Columbia, the
home of the free, and from which only freedom
can go out!

The tune of "Hail Columbia" has for me some
unpleasant associations. Before we started on the
Atlanta campaign it was proclaimed in orders from
division headquarters that the first strain of "Hail
Columbia" should be the call of the first brigade.
And so it became associated with falling tents and
wet and weary marches. When, after much march
ing and some fighting, we had spread the scant can
vas allowed us; had rinsed our only, or our extra
shirt, and hung it out, with our wet blankets, to dry;



HAIL COLUMBIA 525

had found the most adaptable concaves of a bed of
poles; had just received the infrequent mail from the
hands of our faithful chaplain, and were deep in
the long-distance newspaper account of what we
had done and were about to do from some near
hilltop the first strain of "Hail Columbia" rang out,
and the temptation to substitute another spelling of
the first word, or at least to shorten the sound of the
"a," was irresistible. The "general" came next, and
after an interval, just long enough for the resump
tion of the wet shirt and the rolling of the blankets,
the "assembly/' and quickly afterward "to the col
ors." When we were in line "Hail Columbia" had
done its dreadful work, demolished a camp and scat
tered among its unsightly debris the fragments of a
broken command. Then for the first time a
human control of this diabolical enginery appeared
in the shape of an orderly with a long white en
velope stuck in the belt that supported his bloodless
saber. Now, I like to know where I am going be
fore I pack my trunk. Is it strange that I still feel
an impulse to reach for my overcoat when I hear
"Hail Columbia"?

And now, hail to the Columbia club an asso
ciation of loyal, liberal-minded Republicans organ
ized, not to control primaries or to divide the spoils
of office, but to maintain the ascendency of Repub
lican principles and to promote friendliness and good
will among its members. I recall the occasion and



526 VIEWS OF AN EX-PRESIDENT

the circumstances of your organization and the ar
dent readiness with which you on every occasion ren
dered honor and service to me as the party's candi
date and as your neighbor. These things abide in
my memory; they are stored where no vicissitudes
of life can disturb them. But they are more than
mere pleasant reminiscences. They are bonds of
friendship and inspirations to duty.

The decapitation of the ex-president, when the
oath of office has been administered to his successor,
would greatly vivify a somewhat tiresome ceremo
nial. And we may some time solve the newspaper
problem, what to do with our ex-presidents, in that
conclusive way. Until then I hope an ex-president
may be permitted to live somewhere midway be
tween the house of the gossip and the crypt of the
mummy. He will know, perhaps, in an especial way,
how to show the highest honor to the presidential
office and the most courteous deference to the pres
ident. Upon great questions, however especially
upon questions of constitutional law you must give
an ex-president his freedom or the axe and it is
too late to give me the axe.

Any Democratic friends who may share your
hospitality to-night will pardon me for saying to any
of them who have cast beguiling looks toward me,
that the Democratic party has never been less at
tractive than now. No plan of reorganization sug
gests itself to me exceot that suggested by a wag-



HAIL COLUMBIA 27

gish lieutenant of my regiment to a captain whose
platoons were inverted. He said: "Captain, if I
were in your place I would break ranks and have
the orderly call the roll!" Perhaps even this hope
ful program may fail from an inability to agree as to
the roll and as to the orderly.

Gentlemen of the Columbia club, I congratulate
you upon the opening of this magnificent club house
and thank you with a full heart for your many acts
of kindness.



THE END



INDEX

Adams, John 75, 125, 142-145

Adams, John Quincy 99

Anti War Party, An 223-230

Arbitration, International 239-242, 495
Asbury Park, N. J.

Address at banquet of the Cincinnati 486

B

Bancroft 110, 111, 129

Bellomont, Lord 103

Blackstone 35-39,68
Boer War 219, 220, 257-270

Bryce, James 219
Burke 70, 71, 210, 211

C

Canada 152

Charters, The Colonial 30-35, 42-48

Chinese War 243, 244

Cleveland, Grover 400, 401

Colonies, The American 10-123
Columbia Club, Indianapolis

Address at banquet 521-527
Commercial Club, Indianapolis

AcWress at banquet 466-471

Compulsory Dishonesty 454-465

Confederation, The American 124-154, 183

Congress, 1774 and 1775 115-119

(529)



53O INDEX

Constitution, The National 1-29, 189-221

Constitution, The English 4-6, 26

Curtis (Author Constitutional History U. S.) 84

D

Declaration of Independence; 120, 122, 123, 125, 126

Drayton, Justice, 64

E
Ecumenical Missionary Conference

Addresses as Honorary Chairman 497-517

Education

Military, in Schools 367-370

Of Children 419-425

Executive, The State 173

The National 429-435

F

Forum, The

Article on Compulsory Dishonesty 454-465

Frothingham 98

Franklin, Benjamin 32, 59, 77, 105-110

G

Gladstone, William E. 2, 5

Grand Army of Republic

Address at National Encampment 361-366

Great Britain

An alliance with 245-257

H
Hamilton, Alexander 442

Hawaii 188

Hoar, George F. 226-228

Hohenlohe, Prince 508

Hutchinson, Governor 50, 81, 90

I

Indianapolis

Address upon return to in 1893 358

Commercial Club "No Mean City" 466-471

Flag presentation, Light Artillery 482-485

Columbia Club banquet 521-527



INDEX



531



Inheritance Tax Cases of Illinois
Argument in Supreme Court



298-330



Jefferson, Thomas
Judiciary, The Colonial
The National

Kruger, Paul



83, 442

59, 60

429-435

266



Law Reforms, Some Hindrances to

Lecture at Ann Arbor
Lincoln, Abraham
Lodge, Henry Cabot

M
Madison, James

Marquette Club, Chicago

Address Lincoln's Birthday

Mason, George

Mayflower Compact

McKinley, William

Military Instruction in Schools

Miller, Mr. Justice

Monroe Doctrine

Morton, Levi P.

N

New England Society of Pennsylvania
Address at banquet



273-297

472-478

40,45

207

472-478
64
20

382-387, 506

367-370

206

239, 242
390, 391



371-375



Paris, France

Address American Chamber of Commerce 490-496

Parliament, The English 27, 28, 69, 70, 73-85

Penn, William 48, 49, 53, 101

Pensions, 363-365

Petition, Right of 54, 57

Philippines, The 188, 189

Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth 122

Pitt, William 71, 72, 226



532 INDEX

Political Speeches

McKinley meeting, Indianapolis, 1894 382-387

Meeting, Carnegie Hall, New York, 1894 388-418

Meeting, Carnegie Hall, New York, 1896, 426-453

Porto Rico 188, 189, 193, 208-216

R
Railroad Men's Christian Association

Address as presiding officer 518-520

Rainsford, Rev. Dr. 292

Red Cross Society 488-4S9

Roberts, James A. 292-294, 343, 344

Rosebery, Lord 5

S

Silver Question, The 405, 439-465

Spanish War 232, 253, 262, 482, 486, 488, 493

Stanford University

Lectures at 1-184

Founders' Day address 376

States, The 155-185

Story, Judge 68, 69, 80, 121, 122, 152

T
Tariff, The 384, 396-418, 435-439

U

Union League Club, Chicago

Address Washington's Birthday, 1898 331-357

Address Washington's Birthday at banquet 479-481

V

Victoria, Queen 256

W

Washington, George 9, 14, 332, 333, 342

Wealth, obligations of

Address Union League Club, Chicago 331-357

Y\Tilson, James 81

Winslow, Edward 19

World Powers 230-244



"






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Views of an
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