University of Virginia Library

AFTER-DINNER SPEECH.

[AT A FOURTH-OF-JULY GATHERING, IN LONDON, OF AMERICANS.]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I thank
you for the compliment which has just been tendered me, and to show
my appreciation of it I will not afflict you with many words. It is
pleasant to celebrate in this peaceful way, upon this old mother soil, the
anniversary of an experiment which was born of war with this same land
so long ago, and wrought out to a successful issue by the devotion of our
ancestors. It has taken nearly a hundred years to bring the English and
Americans into kindly and mutually appreciative relations, but I believe
it has been accomplished at last. It was a great step when the two last
misunderstandings were settled by arbitration instead of cannon. It is another
great step when England adopts our sewing machines without claiming the
invention—as usual. It was another when they imported one of our sleeping
cars the other day. And it warmed my heart more than I can tell, yesterday, when
I witnessed the spectacle of an Englishman ordering an American sherry cobbler
of his own free will and accord—and not only that but with a great brain
and a level head reminding the bar-keeper not to forget the strawberries.
With a common origin, a common language, a common literature, a common
religion and—common drinks, what is longer needful to the cementing of the
two nations together in a permanent bond of brotherhood?

This is an age of progress, and ours is a progressive land. A great and
glorious land, too—a land which has developed a Washington, a Franklin, a
Wm. M. Tweed, a Longfellow, a Motley, a Jay Gould, a Samuel C. Pomeroy, a
recent Congress which has never had its equal—(in some respects) and a United
States Army which conquered sixty Indians in eight months by tiring them out
—which is much better than uncivilized slaughter, God knows. We have a
criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is
only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything
and can't read. And I may observe that we have an insanity plea that

would have saved Cain. I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have
some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world.

I refer with effusion to our railway system, which consents to let us live,
though it might do the opposite, being our owners. It only destroyed three
thousand and seventy lives last year by collisions, and twenty-seven thousand
two hundred and sixty by running over heedless and unnecessary people at
crossings. The companies seriously regretted the killing of these thirty thousand
people, and went so far as to pay for some of them—voluntarily, of course,
for the meanest of us would not claim that we possess a court treacherous
enough to enforce a law against a railway company. But thank Heaven the
railway companies are generally disposed to do the right and kindly thing without
compulsion. I know of an instance which greatly touched me at the time.
After an accident the company sent home the remains of a dear distant old relative
of mine in a basket, with the remark, “Please state what figure you hold him
at—and return the basket.” Now there couldn't be anything friendlier than that.

But I must not stand here and brag all night. However, you won't mind a
body bragging a little about his country on the fourth of July. It is a fair and
legitimate time to fly the eagle. I will say only one more word of brag—and a
hopeful one. It is this. We have a form of government which gives each man
a fair chance and no favor. With us no individual is born with a right to look
down upon his neighbor and hold him in contempt. Let such of us as are not
dukes find our consolation in that. And we may find hope for the future in the
fact that as unhappy as is the condition of our political morality to-day, England
has risen up out of a far fouler since the days when Charles I. ennobled
courtezans and all political place was a matter of bargain and sale. There is
hope for us yet.[1]