will, the dormant savagery lurks beneath and needs but a provocation to disclose it. Shameful is the truth I now confess, that within this year, in my own State, frenzied men burned a fellow-mortal at the stake.

It were but speculation to say when and where this final test may come, but the field for apprehension would seem to be Central and South America. Hungry eyes already look covetously upon that region, and greedy hands are reaching across the sea to seize it. If this fear be realized, then the part our country will play is easily foretold. The Monroe doctrine is no longer a tentative assertion; it has entered into the very fiber of our national being; it has risen from the dictum of a President to the dignity of our country's ultimatum to all mankind; it can never be modified or abandoned; to forsake it would be the end of our prestige and the beginning of our certain downfall. But it will not be abandoned: it will be reasserted, clearly defined, unfalteringly maintained. Then, indeed, will be made manifest the true destiny of this people, for that destiny is surely upon the American continent. If this probable and appalling conflict shall come, the United States will finally emerge victorious, and the world shall then indeed behold an imperial republic; a republic whose will shall be supreme from the Arctic Ocean to Cape Horn; a republic imperial in power, imperial in justice, imperial in the united strength of a free and happy people, the arbiter of nations and the glory of time.

Response to Toast, "The Thirteenth Juror," at State Bar Association Banquet, Indianapolis, Indiana: Benjamin Harrison, Toastmaster.

T WOULD much diminish my embarrassment to be able to follow the course adopted by the young man who taught school over in Kentucky. Asked his opinion as to the shape of the earth, he said he had no fixed belief on that subject; said that in his part of

the country some of the folks thought it round, but the rest of them were quite sure it was flat, so he just taught it round or flat, according to the views held by those who were to hire the teacher for the next term.

Now, if in assigning me this toast, the committee had been generous enough to attach a diagram, I might be able to respond in the same diplomatic and satisfactory manner. It not only failed, but upon importunity refused to do this, and hence I am remitted to my own meager resources for a conception of this potent supernumerary whose addition transforms the jury proper into a baker's dozen, and upsets all its calculations.

He don't belong to the regular jury, that's certain. In spite of the disputes as to the analogy from which the number comes, it was long ago agreed that twelve and no more was the sacred number. So no matter whether chosen because of "the prophets twelve to foretell the truth, or the seekers twelve sent into Canaan to learn the truth, or the Apostles twelve to preach the truth, or the stones twelve on which the Hierusalem was built," the fact remains that twelve is the limit. I choose to regard the trial judge as the Thirteenth Juror, and to believe that he never appeared to such advantage as in the person of the bluff old judge who, when an unjust verdict was returned against an unpopular defendant, ordered it set aside. with the statement that it took thirteen men to steal a man's farm in his court. This time-worn story is repeated in its original form, although I am tempted to bring it up to date by striking out of it the word "farm" and inserting in its stead some word like "mine," "factory," "railroad," "mortgage," "debt," "franchise" or the like. But you will readily see that this slight change would impress the story with such an appearance of utter improbability as to render it worthless.

Yes, the trial judge is the Thirteenth Juror, and no substitute has been or ever will be found. Public opinion at times attempts to usurp the place, but proves a rank failure. Public opinion is either so unreasonably prejudiced, or else it gets along so late with its half knowledge and indignation, that it only succeeds in discrediting and misrepresenting the whole judicial system.

With it as the controlling juror results would be more uncertain and disspiriting than at present, which

18

Heaven forbid. Not long ago, in a county near mine, public opinion, reinforced by a rope and a demand for instant execution, so harassed a man of the neighborhood that he gladly sought temporary quarters in the State prison, at present the only city of refuge in Southern Indiana. His trial and acquittal without the jury leaving the box, shortly afterwards, showed that public opinion came dangerously near committing murder; but the lesson was lost on public opinion, and it will be ready for the next unfortunate when it happens to wake up again.

Nor will the press do for the important duty. It's too sentimental and impulsive. Charming fellows, these newspaper men, but entirely unconventional in their way of administering the law, especially in criminal cases. These cases are their specialty, and they have a way of their own that is delicious in its novelty. The courts have an old fogy way of taking the evidence of a crime, and from it ascertaining who is the guilty party. That's too slow for the newspapers. They promptly select somebody as the guilty one, and proceed to find the evidence to convict that very fellow. In this, as in everything else they undertake, our energetic friends are usually successful, and as a result it is probable that a number of people have been swung off for crime which they did not commit. It is a great comfort, however, to reflect that each of these individuals had so lived that he was, in the language of the Scotch judge, "none the worse for a little hanging."

Now, there are those who might help discharge the duties of Thirteenth Juror, but they wont. For instance, there is the Supreme Court and its admirable junior and understudy, the Appellate Court. These august bodies manifestly never intend to undertake the