Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures

agle, "a paper bird, brooding over a barren waste;" yet in what they then called a barren waste, railroads now carry m

val London, two southwest, Baltimore and Washington to equal Venice, Philadelphia to match Liverpool, Pittsburg and Buffalo to surpass Birmingham, and beyond these a city called Chicago, which in grit and growth would beat anything the

en archipelagoes at twenty millions each, and still have the wealth of the republic growing at the rate of five millions of dollars every twenty-four hours. What a land in which to live! Think of it; less than a century and a half ago, Liberty and England's runaway daughter, Columbia, took each other "for better or for worse, forever and for aye" and started down time's rugged stream of years. George Washington, then Chief Magistrate, performed the ceremony, and what he joined togeth

d stripes. But when the Spanish-American war broke out, the first boy to pour out his heart's blood for his country's flag, was Ensign Bagley, of North Carolina. The young man who penetrated the Island of Cuba, 'mid Spanish bayonets and bullets, and searched out Cevera and his fleet in the harbor was Victor Blue, the son of a Confederate soldier. Th

the century's searchlight. But alas! we have unsolved problems of imperial moment

n man, I shall turn it

s but little figure now, for the Indian is nightly pitching his moving

life's

death's

face will cease from troubling, and the

icance, since our doors are closed and ba

Southland. I say across the Southland because, the main body of the negro race will never leave the track of the southern sun. The South held the negro in slavery, the North set him free. We supposed at the close of the war, he would leave the South and go to live among his liberators. But after half a century, he is still clinging to the cotton and

, but I hope to present them in such a manner as will help you to appreciat

the best solution of the negro problem. Social equality does take care of itself even among the white races. Some of you may have a white se

dollars. The "first cut" of society came from far and near, but I was not invited, nor did I feel slighted, for I had no claim upon the millionaire magnate socially. But when I meet the great turf-king on the turnpike, he in his limozine and I in my little runabout, I say, "

ght the fundamental principles of Christianity and at the opening of the war nearly every negro belonged to some church. Their preachers used to get their dictionary and Bible very amusingly mixed at times. Elder Barton exhorting his hearers said: "Paul may plant and Apolinarus water, but if you keeps on tradin' off your birthright for a pot of Messapotamia you'se gwine to git lost. You may go down into de water and come up out ob de water like dat Ethiopian Unitarium, but if you keeps on ossifyin' from one saloon to ano

n. The lower classes must be lifted to the tableland of a better life, where they can breathe the pure air of intelligence and morality, or they will pollute the whole body politic. They must also acquire property. Economy is a lesson the negro race needs to learn. This lesson was well presented to a drun

oan me three cents

t you got t

e cent," replie

ain't got three cents, you'se just as well of

s of slavery, how in Christian homes the most merciful masters and the most faithful slaves w

ght a swing and it fall

cities will control in state and national elections, and if ignorance and vice control our cities, then virtue and intelligence as saving influences will not suffice to save us. The ignorance prominent in the machinery of large cities is illustrated by the police force of New York City. When applicants for positions on the police force were being tested a few years ago,

n one attic room in New York City, with no partitions between. Here they "cook, eat, sleep, wash, live and die," in the one room. In our large cities are armies of children, whose shou

works, is the vilest product of the slums, a saloon keeper, a gambler, a man a leading citizen of this city would not invite into his home." That man then controlled the purse strings of the great city of Ch

and go to large cities, where gas-lit streets are throng

tried it all. For about twenty-eight years I lived in the country. Since then my life has been in cities and on railroad trains be

an to walk the floor, working out clothing for that skeleton and racking my brain for climaxes. My wife was with me and she never would worry over my having nothing to say. Into every sentence I would weave she would inject a piece of her mind about home or children or some woman's dress or bonnet. I said: "This is a trying time with me, won't you take a stroll along the beach and let me be alone today?" Like a good wife she gratified my request, and left me to work and worry over that lecture. At four o'clock p.m., I

t must have been the proudest moment of your li

ll one that was greater

n the kitchen steps, when a sweet voice said: "Come, supper's ready." As I entered the dining room my young wife came through the kitchen door, the coffee pot in her hand, her cheeks the ruddier from the glow of the cook stove, her face all lit up

America; A.T. Stewart peddling lace at twenty, a merchant prince at fifty; Carnegie a poor Scotch lad at eighteen, a half billionaire at seventy. These with many more such results on a smaller scale, rainbow the sky that spans the sea, and from the other end, this end is seen pouring its gold and greatness into the lap of the land of the free. So they come, and t

were born i

es

was born i

es

ing at the head

es

icked you a

is country but whose parents were foreign born, was for some misdemeanor chastised by his father. When his playm

eds of anarchy. Many come with tags on their backs giving their destination; not to build American homes; not to learn our language; not to obey our laws, or honor our institutions, but to undermine the honest laboring classes who toil to build homes and educate and clothe their children. I say, take off their tags and let them tag back home. Out of this class came the men who cheered to th

eral said: "A night was never so dark, storm never so wild, weather never so cold as to interfere with his discharge of every duty." From this time on, as lawyer, commonwealth's attorney, congressman, governor, and president, he was a Jonathan to his friends, a Ruth to his kindred, a Jacob to his family, a Gideon to his country. Take him in private life where an intimate friend said: "I never heard him utter a wor

blest citizen, the life of its chief executive is not safe, though guarded by detectives and surrounded by devo

purchase an island in the sea, place all anarchists on that island, and let them run a government of their own." An Irishman said: "I'm not in favor of any s

man who in an address a few years ago said: "This republic is our hunting ground

e to the divine life above." Whoever would destroy the Sabbath day is undermining the republic, and any man who does not like the restrictions of our Sabbath, can find a vessel l

archlight and we have

he all-absorbing one in the west. At the close of my second address I was introduced to the superintendent of the railroad that runs over the Switzerland trail. He said: "I understand your wife is here, and I will be pleased to have you and Mrs. Bain as my guests tomorrow." I knew that meant a free ride and I accepted. The next morning we were at the station at the appointed hour and after a wonderful ride mid scenic grandeur up to where eagles nest, and blizzards hatch out their young, our host said: "I want you to have the most thrilling ride you ever had, and at the next station be ready to leave the train." As the brakes gripped the

her husband was given to dizziness when riding backwards or swinging round sudden curves. She said: "Isn't this a grand sight?" I

id make me sick to travel backwards." When a boy I could not swing as could other boys. My head is not level on my shoulders. I have never crossed the ocean and never will. I cannot ride the rolling waves. Some years ago when out on a little coast ride for pleasure, (if that's what you call

abyss below, I was reminded of the preacher's mistake, when in closing a meeting with the benediction he said: "To Thy name be ascribed all the praises in the world with the end out." Around frost-filed mountain crags, over spider bridges, through sunless gorges, we went down that mountain like an eagle swooping from a storm. When we reached Boulder, Mrs.

me. When I call at the door with a new horse in the carriage or

said, "but

ride, as the Dutchman felt about his twin babies. He said: "I wouldn't take ten tho

r veranda watching the sun as it went down over the mountain's brow, leaving its golden slipper on Flag Staff Peak. Colorado clouds, shell-tinted by the golden glory of the setting sun, were hanging as rich embroideries upon the blue tapestry of the sky, and soon the full moon began to pour its silver on the s

stand on the money question? You got your views so mi

r ends," and since the Philippine Islands were pitched into our lap in a night, it may be it was done that the home, the church and the school might have a chance under civil liberty in the Philippine Islands. With boundless re

free as the air they breathe, but keep the key to Manila Bay as our doorway to the Orient; for whatever may be said of the old "Joss House" kingdom with all her superstitions, she possesses today the "greatest combination of natural conditions for industrial activity of any un

have to sell, and much of it cotton goods, which means future employment for the growing millions of negroes in the South. While it may be best to confine our territorial domain within our ocean ditches, we must encourage commercial expansion, for we have already one hundred millions of people; soon we will have one h

light and it falls upon The

ther. They see excursion trains bound for world's fairs; they want to go. They see stores crowded with the necessaries and luxuries of life; they want a share. They live in days of startling pronouncements, they can read, they want the morning papers. They live in a larger world, and knowing their brains and brawn helped to create the larger

ying, "I rule all;" a soldier with a sword in his hand saying, "I fight for all;" a bishop with a Bible i

em, for their

the glory o

re their dro

onds in a

l the country over and note the men who file in and out the saloons. Are they bankers or leading business men? No, they are laborers from factories, furnaces, fields and

alcohol when he enters the Stock Exchange, where his mind goes like a driving wheel from which the belt has slipped." The la

ed of the average manufactories of the land; what they spend in ten years would purchase five thousan

strike, in which laboring men are out of work and families suffering for the necessaries of life, why not stop drinking beer and whiskey for ninety days, buy the whole business and let the Pullman Company do something else. How

ever so many thieves. In 1850 seven thousand in our penitentiaries; in 1860 twenty thousand; in 1870 thirty-two thousand; in 1880 fifty-eight thousand; in 1890 eighty-two thousand, and in 1900 one hundred thousand. In London, England, last year with over seven millions of people, twenty-four murders; in Chicago, one hundred and eighteen. There are more murders in this republic than in any civilized land beneath the sky. Yet in face of all

are trained to sin; the "fire-damp of combination trusts" stifling the working world; gambling brokers cornering the markets in the necessaries of life; the wages of working girls bein

nether standpoint and see what we have come thr

n overwhelmed with debt; four million negroes turned loose penniless in the South to beg bread at the white man's door, and he already on "Poverty row;" Abraham

er home over the Mexican border and see the government torn to tatters and public men shot down like dogs. Then turn and note our country's magnanimous dealings with Cuba; her teachers schooling Filipinos into nobler life; our President leading the armies of Russia and Japan out of the rivers of blood; slavery gone, lot

e shows. It seemed to me I never saw the great city so gay. But, on Monday morning after, there came on ether waves the appalling news that the finest ship in the world had gone down, and sixteen hundred human beings had gone with it. I never witnessed such a transformation. It seemed

groom who carried his bride to a life boat, said, "good-bye sweetheart," kissed her and stepping back went down with the ship. All hail to that loyal loving Hebrew wife and mother, Mrs. Straus, who holding to her husband's arm said: "I would ra

while we have such manhood and wom

land at midnight, men lean from the saddles of iron horses, peering down the railroad track, ready to die if need be for the safety of those entrusted to

ats but to form in order, and send out over the icy ocean, the music of the sweet song, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." When the ship lifted at one end and starte

t the w

unto H

Thou se

rcy g

to be

my God

to

"On joyful wings cleaving the sky," ocean and icebergs forgot did upward fly, and

ot dying out

d footprints of mercy. In Rome the soldier was the cohesive power, while socially everything was isolated. In this republic there is an interlacing and binding together in bonds of human brotherhood. A Methodist here bound to Methodists everywhere, Presbyterian to Presbyterian, Baptist to Baptist, Disciple to Disciple, Lutheran to Lutheran, Catholic to Catholic,

ble and what do I find? Only a very few pages given to the creation of the material universe, with all its gold and silver, suns and systems, but I find page after page, ch

ave said when the lecture closes. In the formula of human touch, laid down in the life of Jesus of Nazaret

he cross, He was ever touching the masses, healing their diseases, soothing their sorrows and teaching the lesson, "the more humanity you place

m him sat a finely-dressed lady and as the boy stared at he

? Don't you see you have put mud on my dres

m so sorry I got mud on your d

ng, all by your li

o my aunt's

ou no m

t's why I was settin' up close to you to make believe you wuz my moth

ut him, and tears in her eyes, and the boy could have wiped his feet on any dress in

r. The owner said: "You can have something

do," asked

d soon after a blue-eyed, golden-haired girl of four years came out, and appr

ll alone in

got no mama

e tramp wiped away a tear as memory cam

you, 'cause I have a h

ess said: "That's a good job; you must have done that

The tramp finished his supper and passing out, the little one in the carriage said: "Good-bye, mister. When you want supper again

g off his old hat bowed low to the lit

e, screaming for help. Men ran out but the mad horses cleared the track. The tramp fixed himself, and as the team swept by, he gave a bound and caught the bit of the nearest horse. The horses reared and plunged but the tramp held o

man he smiled, and then the spirit took its flight, to where He who died to save the wor

y and power o

with the stars; if it is to go down the ages like a broadening colonade of light, and stand in steady splendor at the height of the world's civilization; it will not be because of its money standard, its tariff or expansi

sisters work; wo

the golden

illennial mo

arts and bl

will, brave

e lordlier