Page images
PDF
EPUB

if you make a change in your President and in the party which administers your government? How long will your good times last if you turn out the Republicans and give political power to those who cry nothing but " Woe! woe!"

The lovers of calamity and foes of prosperity who hold success in business to be a crime and regard thrift as a misdemeanor? If the Democrats should win do you think business would improve? Do you think that prices would remain steady, that wages would rise and employment increase when that result of the election was known? Business confidence rests largely upon sentiment. Do you think that sentiment would be a hopeful one the day after Bryan's election?

Business confidence is a delicate plant. Do you think it would flourish with the Democratic Party? .

Do you not know from recent and bitter experience what that arrest of movement, that fear of the future, means? It means the contraction of business, the reduction of employment, the increase of the unemployed, lower wages, hard times, distress, unhappiness.

ill. We

We do not say that we have panaceas for every ill. do not claim that any policy we, or any one else, can offer will drive from the world sorrow and suffering and poverty, but we say that so far as government and legislation can secure the prosperity and well being of the American people, our administration and our policies will do it. We point to the adversity of the Cleveland years lying dark behind us. It has been replaced by the prosperity of the McKinley years, Let them make whatever explanation they will, the facts are with us.

It is on these facts that we shall ask for the support of the 'American people. What we have done is known, and about what we intend to do there is neither secrecy nor deception.

What we promise we will perform. Our old policies are here, alive, successful and full of vigor. Our new policies have been begun, and for them we ask support. While the clouds of impending civil war hung dark over the country in 1861 we took up the great task then laid upon us and never flinched until we had carried it through to victory.

Now, at the dawn of a new century, with new policies and new opportunities opening before us in the bright sunshine of prosperity, we again ask the American people to entrust us with their future. We have profound faith in the people. We do not distrust their capacity of meeting the new responsibilities even as they met the old, and we shall await with confidence, under the leadership of William McKinley, the verdict of November.

GRADY

H

Courier

[ocr errors]

ENRY WOODFEN GRADY, an American orator and journalist, was born at Athens, Georgia, May 24, 1850, and received his education at the State universities of Georgia and Virginia. Engaging in journalism, he was for a time editor successively of the " and "Commerical at Rome, Georgia, and, after removing to Atlanta in 1871, was for some six years editorially connected with the Atlanta "Herald." In 1880 he became editor and part-owner of the Atlanta "Constitution," and was its editor at the time of his death, which occurred at Atlanta, December 23, 1889. In the latter part of his career Grady's remarkable eloquence as an orator gave him a national reputation. Among his best-know" speeches are his address before the New England Club of New York city, December 21, 1886, a famous prohibition speech at Atlanta in 1887, an address at the Texas State Fair in 1888, and the speech delivered at Boston a few days before his death, on "The Future of the Negro." Grady was an enthusiastic supporter of the prohibition movement, and his speeches on the political situation helped to foster good feeling between North and South.

THE NEW SOUTH

SPEECH DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW ENGLAND CLUB, NEW YORK, DECEMBER 21, 1886

HERE was a South of slavery and secession—that

ΤΗ

South is dead. There is a South of union and freedom-that South, thank God, is living, breathing, growing every hour.

These words, delivered from the immortal lips of Benjamin H. Hill, at Tammany Hall in 1866, true then and truer now, I shall make my text to-night.

Mr. President and Gentlemen-Let me express to you my appreciation of the kindness by which I am permitted to address you. I make this abrupt acknowledgment advisedly, for I feel that if, when I raise my provincial voice in this ancient and august presence, I could find courage for no more than the opening sentence, it would be well if in that sentence

(10724)

[ocr errors]

I had met in a rough sense my obligation as a guest, and had perished, so to speak, with courtesy on my lips and grace in my heart. Permitted, through your kindness, to catch my second wind, let me say that I appreciate the significance of being the first Southerner to speak at this board, which bears the substance, if it surpasses the semblance, of original New England hospitality, and honors the sentiment that in turn honors you, but in which my personality is lost and the compliment to my people made plain.

You re

I bespeak the utmost stretch of your courtesy to-night. I am not troubled about those from whom I come. member the man whose wife sent him to a neighbor with a pitcher of milk, and who, tripping on the top step, fell with such casual interruptions as the landings afforded into the basement, and, while picking himself up, had the pleasure of hearing his wife call out: "John, did you break the pitcher?" "No, I didn't," said John, "but I'll be dinged if I don't."

So, while those who call me from behind may inspire me with energy if not with courage, I ask an indulgent hearing from you. I beg that you will bring your full faith in American fairness and frankness to judgment upon what I shall say. There was an old preacher once who told some boys of the Bible lesson he was going to read in the morning. The boys, finding the place, glued together the connecting pages. The next morning he read at the bottom of one page, “When Noah was one hundred and twenty years old he took unto himself a wife who was "-then turning the page" 140 cubits long, 40 cubits wide, built of gopher wood, and covered with pitch inside and out." He was naturally puzzled at this. He read it again, verified it, and then said: "My friends, this is the first time I ever met this

in the Bible, but I accept this as an evidence of the assertion that we are fearfully and wonderfully made." If I could get you to hold such faith to-night I could proceed cheerfully to the task I otherwise approach with a sense of consecration.

Pardon me one word, Mr. President, spoken for the sole purpose of getting into the volumes that go out annually freighted with the rich eloquence of your speakers, the fact that the Cavalier as well as the Puritan was on the continent in its early days, and that he was up and able to be about.' I have read your books carefully and I find no mention of that fact, which seems an important one to me for preserving a sort of historical equilibrium if for nothing else.

[ocr errors]

Let me remind you that the Virginia Cavalier first challenged France on the continent; that Cavalier John Smith' gave New England its very name, and was so pleased with the job that he has been handing his own name around ever since; and that while Myles Standish was cutting off men's ears for courting a girl without her parents' consent, and forbade men to kiss their wives on Sunday, the Cavalier was courting everything in sight, and that the Almighty had vouchsafed great increase to the Cavalier colonies, the huts in the wilderness being as full as the nests in the woods.

But having incorporated the Cavalier as a fact in your charming little books, I shall let him work out his own salvation, as he has always done, with engaging gallantry, and we will hold no controversy as to his merits. Why should we? Neither Puritan nor Cavalier long survived as such. The virtues and good traditions of both happily still live for the inspiration of their sons and the saving of the old fashion. But both Puritan and Cavalier were lost in the storm of the first Revolution, and the American citizen, supplanting both and stronger than either, took possession of the republic

« PreviousContinue »