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ALTGELD MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION S- OF CHICAGO iſm (Nemoriam .JOHN P. ALTGELD Born December 30, 1847 : : Died March 12, 1902 ORCHESTRA HALL, SUNDAY, MARCH 10, 1912, 2:30 P.M. DANIEL L. CRUICE, Chairman MUSIC BY THE SINAI CONGREGATION CHOIR Mr. ArtHUR DUNHAM, Organist and Director Sopranos Altos Tenors Bassos MRs. MABEL SHARP HERDIEN Miss Rose L. GANNoN MR. W. B. Ross MR. ARTHUR ANDERSON Mrs. ARTHUR DUNHAM Miss Elsie SCHNADIG Mr. GLENN Hobbs MR. GUY SHAw ORDER OF EXERCISES . Columbia the Gem of the Ocean Suwanee River 1 ORGAN Medley of American Airs, including ; Illinois 4 5 . Old Kentucky Home M. R. ARTHUR DUNHAM . Star Spangled Banner PRAYER BY THE REv. THOMAS E. Cox “HYMN TO THE HOMELAND” * sº sº º Sullivan BY THE CHOIR ADDRESS - <--> tº- gºs * - HON. SAMUEL ALSCHULER ADDRESS - * tºº * gº * HON. EDwARD F. DUNNE “HOW BLEST ARE THEY” e- tº- * * - Z's chaikozysky ADDRESS - * gºs * - gº REv. HERBERT S. BIGELOW President of Ohio Constitutional Convention “AMERICA” * *- * &- sº * vººr - Smith BY THE CHO!R AND AUDIENCE ORATION - * - tº- tº tº- * HON. WILLIAM J. BRYAN “GOD BE WITH YOU TILL WE MEET AGAIN’’ - sº A’ankin BY THE CHOIR The Oil Painting of Governor Altgeld exhibited on the platform is loaned by the Chicago Historical Society for this occasion NOTE. - A complete record in pamphlet form of today’s meeting can be secured, without cost, on or after April 1st, 1912, by making application to the Secretary of the Association MR. Joseph S. MARTIN, 1231 Unity Building, Chicago, Ill. AMERICA -*- My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From every mountain side Let freedom ring. My native country—thee, Land of the noble, free— Thy name I love; I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills; My heart with rapture thrills, Like that above. Let music swell the breeze, And ring from all the trees Sweet freedom's song; Let mortal tongues awake, Let all that breathe partake, Let rocks their silence break— The sound prolong. Our Fathers’ God,—to Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light; Protect us by Thy might, Great God our King Biography of John P. Altgeld OHN PETER ALTGELD was born in Germany in 1847. He was J brought to this country as an infant by his emigrant parents, who settled near Mansfield, Ohio. His father and mother were poor and perhaps of narrow views in regard to the training of their children. He wished for a liberal education. Conscious of intel- lectual power, even as a young boy, he wanted to make the best of himself God had made possible. His schooling was very scanty. Like Lincoln, as a youth, he read few books but good ones. Like him, too, he read them in the midst of discouragement and hard- ships. In 1863, at the age of sixteen, he became a private soldier in the Union army. Returning to his father’s farm at the close of the war, he remained at work for his parents until he came to be twenty-one. Then, with only a few dollars borrowed from a friend, he started west to seek his fortune. He worked as a common laborer for a time, I remember that he told me once, in building a railroad in Arkansas. I suppose that it could not have been for long, for the latter part of 1869 found him a school teacher in a country school in Savannah, Missouri, and a law student in the office of a local lawyer at such times as he could snatch from his necessary work for a livelihood. In 1872 he was admitted to the bar, and immediately his ability gaining recognition, was made city attorney of Savannah. In 1874 he was elected state's attorney of the county of which Savannah was the county seat. But the duties which met him in that office were not to his taste. He served a year and then resigned and came to Chicago with the scant savings of his three years' practice to hew out his fortune and make his name among the citizens of Illinois. (From address of Mr. Justice Edward O. Brown before the Chicago Histor- ical Society, December 5, 1905.) Words of John P. Altgeld Government is the constant meeting of new conditions. CŞ% While the past may admonish, it is the future that inspires. CŞ2, Let us save our institutions: government by injunction must be crushed out. CŞ% In all ages only those people have had a measure of justice who were in a position to compel it. CŞ2) Teach the employer that he is not above the law and the employe that he is not beneath its notice. g CŞ& Only those nations grow great which correct abuses, make reforms and listen to the voice of the struggling masses. CŞ2, It is the criminal rich and their hangers-on who are the real anarchists of our time. They rely on fraud and brute force. CŞ2, All great reforms, all forward movements of the human race, were born of, were nurtured, rocked and reared by minority parties. CŞ% He (Henry George) had shown what one earnest, patriotic man can do toward restoring the people to their inheritance and then gone home. tº, Each age furnishes weapons for the people. The weapons for this age are the Initiative and Referendum. Through them we can restore Democracy. CŞ2, The really influential men in America are, I repeat, the suc- cessful private individuals—positive men, earnest, conscientious, thorough-going men. CŞ2, If our institutions are to undergo a great change, it is vital that the men of America and not the money should direct the change. Money may be a blessing as a servant, but it is a curse as a master. 10 WORDS OF JOHN P. ALTG ELD Why do we honor the memory of Jackson? Amid temptation and threats of destruction he fixed his eye on the star of Justice, shook his fist in the face of power and delivered the American people. CŞo It is worthy of note that in all times men who profit by wrong or seek the Smile of injustice, assume an air of superiority. But their names are never stamped on any roll of honor and no tears moisten their graves. CŞ% In Our country to-day both government and people are subser- vient to the corporations, and one argument in favor of Postal Savings Banks is that it would help to free both government and people from this domination. CŞ% In all ages and in all countries the men who are in the wrong deprecated discussion. In no countries have dishonest policies sought the Sun, and no Organizations of highwaymen have as yet petitioned for electric light. CŞ2, The great men and women of the past who led the human race onward were not reared, as a rule, in the lap of luxury. They came, as a rule, from the bottom, and not from the top; they were familiar with hardships and were acquainted with sorrow. CŞ2, No government was ever overthrown by the poor and we have nothing to fear from that source. It is the greedy and the power- ful that pull down the pillars of state. Greed, corruption and pharisaism are to-day Sapping the foundations of government. CŞ23 We owe our country more than talk; we cannot discharge our duty by simply celebrating the glorious deeds of the past. The men who only do this proclaim to the world their imbecility and the humiliating fact that they are not capable of directing the great institutions which the fathers founded. - - CŞ& t There is to-day no agency in American politics that is so fiercely hungry, so thoroughly unscrupulous, so absolutely destitute of every principle of honor as the great newspapers of this country, and God has not made the man who can do anything great or good for this city or this Republic while guided by their influence. C޺ There is a peculiar pleasure in dedicating these monuments, because they commemorate the deeds of the volunteer soldiers, the citizen soldiers who came from the walks of every-day life, and who WORDS OF JOHN P. ALTG ELD 11 represented the common sense, the rugged character, the love of Country and the earnestness of the great American people. CŞ% Now, gentlemen, why do we celebrate the birth of Andrew Jackson 2 It is because he stood erect in the sight of Omnipotence and all the children of man, and defied the forces of plutocracy. It is because he stood for the great toiling masses of humanity, because he stood for those doctrines that are vital to free government.” CŞ3 Let me say to young men, this age is weary of the polite and weak camp followers, weary of servility, weary of cringed necks and knees bent to corruption. This age is calling for soldiers, call- ing for strong character, calling for men of high purpose, calling for men who have convictions of their own and who have the courage to act. On them. • CŞ& These two principles, i. e., Federal Union and Local Self-Gov- ernment, have for a century been regarded as the foundation upon which the glory of our whole governmental fabric rests. One is just as sacred, just as inviolable, just as important as the other. Without Federal Union there must follow anarchy, and without Local Self- Government there must follow despotism. C޺ Government by injunction is incompatible with republican institutions, and if it is to be sustained then there is an end of trial by jury in Our country, and instead of being governed by law we will be subject to government by judges, and if government by injunction is to be sustained by federal judges, then we will soon have it on the part of State judges and the very foundations of free institutions will disappear. C޺ Mr. Lincoln was nominated for president, and men who have since helped to Canonize him then denounced him as a demagogue and a vulgar clown, with whom no respectable man could associate; he was regarded as an agitator who was endangering our institu- tions. There were at that time twenty-three preachers of the gospel in Springfield, Illinois, which was his home, and history has recorded the fact that only three supported Mr. Lincoln. tº We glory in our common school system; we glory in the fact that over a century ago Thomas Jefferson, while a member of the Legislature of Virginia, Secured the enactment of laws, and the first law in that State, Creating a common-school system, a system of 12 |WORDS OF JOHN P. ALTG.E.L.D free libraries, and laying the foundation of a university. He recog- nized the fact, as we do, that universal education of the masses is an absolute necessity to the permanence of democratic institutions. CŞ3, Every age has produced millions of strong and industrious men who knew no higher God than the dollar; who coined their lives in sordid gold, who gave no thought to blessing the world or lifting up humanity; men who owned ships and palaces and the riches of the earth, who gilded meanness with splendor and then sunk into oblivion. Posterity erected no statue to their memory, and there was not a pen in the universe that would even preserve a letter of their names. CŞ% There cannot be in a republic any institution exempt from crit- icism, and when any institute is permitted to assume that attitude it will destroy republican government. The judicial branch of the government * * * needs this criticism more than does either of the other two branches because * * * the people can make their will felt in the legislative and executive offices; but the federal judges * * * cannot be reached except by the moral sentiment and sense of justice created in the public mind by free criticism. - CŞ& - Government by injunction operates this way: When a judge wants to do something not authorized by law, he simply makes a law to suit himself. That is, he sits down in his chamber and issues a kind of ukase which he calls an injunction against the people of an entire community or of a whole State, forbidding what- ever he sees fit to forbid, and which the law does not forbid, and commanding whatever he sees fit to command, and which the law does not command—for when the law forbids or commands a thing no injunction is necessary. CŞ% Great as is Chicago—great in its railroads, great in its fac- tories, its warehouses, its office temples, great in its energy and enterprise of its people—its glory will fade unless it builds on more than material foundations. The generations to come will care nothing for our warehouses, our buildings or our railroads; but they will ask what has Chicago done for humanity; where has it made man wiser, nobler or stronger; what new thought, or principle, or truth has it given to the World 2 CŞ% Government was created by power and has always been con- trolled by power. Do not imagine that it is sufficient if you have WORDS OF JOHN P. A.L.TGELD 13 justice and equity on your side, for the earth is covered with the graves of justice and equity that failed to receive recognition, because there was no influence or force to compel it, and it will be so until the millennium. Whenever you demonstrate that you are an active concentrated power, moving along lawful lines, then you will be felt in government. Until then you will not. This is an age of law as well as of force, and no force succeeds that does not move along legal lines. C޺ What, then, draws the world to this man 2. It is the broad sym- pathy for suffering mortals which he possessed. Henry George's soul went out toward all that were in distress. His ear caught the cry of sorrow that has saddened the ages from the time that the children of Israel sat down by the river of Babylon and wept. In writing “Progress and Poverty” he dipped his pen into the tears of the human race, and with a celestial clearness wrote down what he conceived to be eternal truths. When he died, there was nowhere a soul that cried out, “There is one iron hand less to grind us, one wolf less to tear our flesh,” but everywhere a feeling that a friend of the race had gone. CŞ% Young men, life is before you. Two voices are calling you— one coming from the Swamps of selfishness and force, where success means death; and the other from the hill tops of justice and prog- ress, where even failure brings glory. Two lights are seen in your horizon—one the fast fading marsh light of power, and the other the slowly rising sun of human brotherhood. Two ways lie open for you—one leading to an ever lower and lower plain, where are heard the cries of despair and the curses of the poor, where manhood shrivels and possession rots down the possessor; and the other leading off to the highlands of the morning, where are heard the glad shouts of humanity and where honest effort is rewarded with immortality. S2 C3 - But, says some one, is there any use in our making an effort? Are not all the bankers of this country, all of the trusts and great corporations of this country, all the powerful forces of this country, is not the fashion of this country, are not the drawing-rooms and the clubs of this country now controlled by concentrated and cor- rupt wealth 2 Are they not growing stronger every year, and do they not vilify and attempt to crush everybody that does not submit? Can anything be accomplished in the way of curbing this great force and protecting the American people? My friends, let me cite you a parallel: George William Curtis and other writers of his day have described the slave power back in the 14 WORDS OF JOHN P. ALTGELD 50's. They tell us that slavery sat in the White House and made laws in the capitol; that courts of justice were its ministers; that senators and legislators were its lackeys; that it controlled the pro- fessor in his lecture room, the editor in his sanctum, the preacher in his pulpit; that it swaggered in the drawing room; that it ruled at the clubs; that it dominated with iron hand all the affairs of society; that every year enlarged its power, every move increased its dominion; that the men and the women who dared to even question the divinity of that institution were ostracized, were persecuted, were vilified—aye, were hanged. But the great clock in the Chamber of the Omnipotent never stands still. It ticked away the years as it had once ticked away the centuries. Finally it struck the hour and the world heard the tread of a million armed men, and slavery vanished from America forever. Note the parallel. To-day the syndicate rules at the White House and makes laws at the capitol; courts of justice are its ministers; senators and legislators are its lackeys. It controls the preacher in his pulpit, the professor in his lecture-room, the editor in his sanc- tum; it swaggers in the drawing-room; it rules at the clubs; it dominates with a rod of iron the affairs of society. Every year enlarges its power; and the men and Women who protest against the crimes that are being committed by Organized greed in this country —who talk of protecting the American people—are ostracized, are vilified, are hounded and imprisoned. It seems madness to even question the divinity of the American Syndicate. But, my friends, that great clock is still ticking—still ticking. Soon it will again strike the hour and the world will see not 1,000,000 but 10,000,000 free men rise up, armed not with muskets, but with free-men's ballots, and the sway of the syndicate will vanish from America forever. ADDRESSES AND ORATIONS DELIVERED AT THE MEMORIAL EXERCISES MR. LEBOSKY, in opening the meeting, said: The John P. Altgeld Memorial Association welcomes you here today to observe with it the Tenth Anniversary of the death of our much lamented and dearly loved leader in the cause of Democracy. This association was organized in the words of its printed declaration and object: “To keep alive the inspiring memory of JOHN P. ALTGELD, volunteer soldier, jurist, statesman, publicist and humanitarian, and to inculcate the principles of free government to which he heroically dedicated his life.” We observe this memorial today with the assistance of those men of America who have stood for the principles of free govern- ment to which he so heroically dedicated his life, and so, in opening this meeting, it is my privilege as One of the vice-presidents of this association, to present to you, ladies and gentlemen, as the chair- man of this occasion, a young man who has, throughout his life, raised his voice and given his time and the strength of his mind to the same magnificent principles and at much the same cost to himself, as was given by JOHN P. ALTGELD. It is my rare and great privilege to present to you as the chair- man of this meeting, Mr. DANIEL L. CRUICE. (Applause.) -- Daniel L. Cruice Mr. Vice-President, Ladies and Gentlemen : Ten years ago tomorrow night John P. Altgeld, on the stage of a theatre in Joliet, made an eloquent plea in behalf of the Boers then struggling for independence against Great Britain. The plea and the prayer were too much for his frail and delicate body—he col- lapsed and died. John P. Altgeld's exertions in behalf of the Boers typified and illustrated his life as a man and citizen; ever the champion of the oppressed, ever invoking humanity, in commerce, in society and politics, ever the opponent of industrial and economic wrong, his death was a fitting finale to a life of continuous sacrifice. We have invited you here today to join with us in prayer, song and Speech, that we may, in a measure fittingly commemorate Altgeld's integrity as an official, his virtues as a man, and his patriotism as a citizen. From amongst those who loved and respected Altgeld and whom Altgeld loved and respected, we have called upon one to lead us in prayer, the Reverend Father Cox. (Applause.) Father Cox Every word, I believe, that will be uttered today in these exer- cises, will be a prayer to Almighty God, who rules the destinies of nations, braces up men who, in their turn, lift up the standards of the people. You will, therefore, pardon me for making a preface to the invocation, if I call your attention to an experience which I have had. If any of you should ever visit the city of Genoa, the city that gave us Christopher Columbus, you must not fail to go out to the Campo Santo, the holy camp, the grave-yard of the city, which is at the same time the burial place of the dead and one of the greatest sculpture galleries of the world. You may find there amongst the magnificent works of art, carved in white marble, the student statue of a lawyer, clad in his academic robe. A face more beautiful, serene and peaceful, you could not gaze upon. Just below him is also carved the picture of a woman, his wife, looking up to him; and her face is most beautiful, also, but one of the pictures of sadness. Here is to the other point in the statue that I shall call your attention: In the hand of the lawyer is a book, and On that book is written in the Latin language, “He has given his talents to the poor.” No One who has gazed upon that statue and also upon the picture of John P. Altgeld, could hardly fail to make a connection between these two things. He, too, hath given his talents to the poor. Our chairman has more than once introduced me at these meet- ings as an old friend of John P. Altgeld, referring rather to my looks than to my old age, and not so much to our intimate life, as sympathy in principles. From the hour in which I read the reasons which moved John P. Altgeld to do that courageous act in favor of the so-called anarchists, when he showed to the world that he was not only a defender of the defenseless but a friend of every man, and of public rights, I became a friend of John P. Altgeld. (Ap- plause.) In your presence, I ask you to stand then during the invocation, while I utter the prayer taught by the Savior of men: “Our Father who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.” THE CHAIRMAN: During Governor Altgeld's activities in Illi- nois affairs, he was ably assisted by a young man whose activities gave promise of a future. When, in 1896, Governor Altgeld laid down the standard he had carried as his party's candidate for gov- ernor, that standard was taken up by a young man who was loyal to him in his lifetime, and who is loyal to his memory in death, the Honorable Samuel Alschuler. (Applause.) Address of Hon. Samuel Alschuler It seems but yesterday, and not a decade, since our tears mingled with the soil that closed the new-made grave of Altgeld. The intervening years have keenly felt the absence of his virile pen, his eloquent tongue and his forceful example. It cannot be said of him, as of many others in history, that he lived too long for the good of his fame, or that he died under circumstances or just in time to rescue his name from oblivion. As his life was a constant devotion to humanity, and his exist- ence a continuous self-sacrifice, his untimely death only cut short yet more devotion, and yet more sacrifice. Justice was his consuming passion; popular education his fondest hope and corruption in public service his pet aversion. For the first he plead and strove and sacrificed; for the second he planned and wrought and builded; and against the last he inveighed and threatened and thundered. His love of justice found expression in many humane enactments and changes in the law, and in the advocacy of many others. His enthusiasm for popular enlightenment, coupled with his great con- structive genius, gave impetus to educational progress, and Sup- plied vast addition to our educational facilities. The implacable foe of all evil practices in government, he boldly and fiercely grappled with the many-headed, many-tentacled monster of official corruption, and beat it, for a time at least, into subsidence, and compelled at least temporary release of its unholy grasp. He well realized that corruption of public servants is the greatest crime against the public welfare; that it eats, Saps, cor- rodes and destroys the very foundations of our social system, and that unless curbed and arrested, the structure must fall, and Our government must share the fate of those many others which have crumbled and disappeared as the result of corruption and official recreamcy. Altgeld's call of the people to duty has not gone wholly unheeded. The things for which he stood, oft times quite alone, have become the radiating centers of present thought—the rallying 22 ADDRESS OF HON. SAMUEL A. LSCHULER points of modern political action. While not, perhaps, the dis- coverer of great truths, he did more—he helped bring the people to a realizing sense of destructive conditions, and dangerous tend- dencies, which, though well known, were endured and tolerated because they had been all too common. His great task was not, and in the nature of things could not be and never can be completed. So long as men remain cast in their present mold, there will be justice to be upheld, equality among men to be maintained, vice and corruption to be combated. These occasions would be indeed a mockery and a hypocrisy, a reflection upon, and not a loving tribute to him whose memory we honor, if the things he stood for did not find in ourselves more than mere passive approval and high-sounding praise. Let us to-day truly and in good faith commemorate the life of this great exemplar of justice and equality among men, this foe of hypocrisy and corruption and greed, by dedicating onrselves to the cause of equal rights and justice, and of eternal, unyielding, resist- ance to graft, corruption, and all dishonest practices, by whatever name or in whatever form they may be manifested. 3. The Chairman The part taken by Governor Altgeld in the affairs of the State and Nation, lead many of us to forget his career as a judge of the Superior Court. In that position, he brought to bear the same logical, intelligent and humane characteristics that later made him conspicuous in national and State affairs. At the time Judge Altgeld was winning laurels as a jurist, a lawyer at our bar, profit- ing by the precept and examples of Judge Altgeld, later adorned the circuit bench of Cook county, and the respect and esteem in which he held Judge Altgeld ripened into a sincere affection for John P. Altgeld as a man and a citizen. No exercise commemorative of Governor Altgeld and his activ- ities would be complete without the presence of and an address by the Honorable Edward F. Dunne. (Applause.) Address of Ex-Mayor E. F. Dunne Marble and recording brass decay And like the graver’s memory pass away; The Pºorks of man inherit, as is just, i.º. frailty and return to dust; But truth divine forever stands secure, Its head as guarded as its base is sure. — Cowper. Ten years ago there passed away at Joliet, in this State, a great statesman and a just man, the memory of whose name we cherish today. As the years roll by and as we recede in time from that strenu- ous era in which John P. Altgeld took such an active and impor- tant part, the figure that he made in the history of his day looms larger and grander. Excepting only Lincoln and Douglas, no man in the history of Illinois has left his impress upon the thoughts and affections of the common people of the State as did Governor Altgeld. In every crisis that involved the rights and interests of the common people, which arose in the decade from 1892 to 1902, dur- ing which Altgeld was a leading figure in public life, he threw him- self into the contest with dynamic force and philanthropic disinter- estedness on the side of the people. Reckless of consequences, social, political or financial, he preached and practiced the poor man's gospel of equal rights. Possessed of a financial competency sufficient to entitle him to be ranked before his entry into active political life among the mil- lionaires of his day, and holding a position of dignity and emolu- ment upon the bench, when the call to public duty reached him without calculating the cost he abandoned his private interests and resigned from the bench to fight the battle of man against Mammon. A more unique and remarkable eharacter never appeared in the history of the Middle States of America. A German immigrant of weakly frame and constitution and without financial resource, we find him a poor working boy in this country when it became involved in a life and death struggle for its existence. ADRRESS OF Ex-MAYOR E. F. DUNNE 25 Possessed of that courage and love of liberty which has char. acterized the Teutonic race from the time when, with undaunted hearts and naked bodies, the Allemani fought the serried and cuir- rassed legions of Rome under Caesar and preserved their independ- ence of Rome along the banks of the Rhine, Altgeld, at 16 years of age, risked his life for the abolition of human slavery and the preservation of his adopted country. Preserved by Providence for greater accomplishments, Altgeld returned from the battlefield unscathed in body to resume the duties of the citizen in time of peace. He quickly acquired by self-education the qualifications of a successful teacher, taught school for a period, during which his laudable ambition and tireless energy procured his admission to the bar. His wonderful intellect and tireless energy soon placed him among the leaders of his profession, and then upon the bench, with a fortune amassed from his practice and judicious investments. Always a deep thinker and a humanitarian when he took his Seat upon the bench he became a student of social problems. That the rapidly produced wealth of the country was being concentrated in the hands of a few exploiters of labor, while the real producers of this wealth were but scant partakers of the same; that half-starved workingmen stalked the streets of great cities, where policemen guarded safety deposit vaults containing billions of securities, and that the laws and policies of government not only permitted but fostered such an inequitable distribution of wealth, caused Altgeld, as it caused Henry George and Tom Johnson, to take an active part in public life, with the design of remedying such dangerous conditions. No man ever entered in the active warfare of politics with more unselfish and disinterested motives. In 1892, when called upon by the Democratic party to become its candidate for Governor of Illinois, he had an ample fortune, a position of dignity and large property interests. Political promotion beyond the governorship was impossible by reason of his foreign birth. Yet the hope that, by holding the position of Governor of a great State, he might be able to fight vested privilege and enforce equity in legislation and aid with humane laws the lot of the common laborer which he had shared when a boy, impelled him to make the race for Governor. His election to that office was a shock to every tax-dodging, law-defying, labor-skinning and judge-corrupting plutocrat and corporation in America. That a man who believed in absolute equality before the law, and who could not be bribed, brow-beaten, cozened or cajoled by 26 - ADDRESS OF EX-MAYOR. E. F. DUNNE the agents of special privilege, should occupy the highest position in the great State of Illinois was to them a matter of serious portend. If the precedent should become contagious, what might happen? At Once the syndicated powers of privilege and plutocracy opened War upon the Governor. Most of the metropolitan papers of the country were already under the control of the moneyed interests. Such as were not and were needed were speedily secured, pelf, not principle, being the actuating motive. A campaign of slander, vituperation and billingsgate unparal- lelled even in the unscrupulous methods of the modern dailies was inaugurated and maintained by the unprincipled owners of these papers to blacken the character and weaken the influence of this high-minded and courageous friend of the people. His motives were impugned, his utterances distorted, his acts misrepresented, his financial interests assailed, his public and private life assaulted with all the venom that the human mind was capable of exuding. He was pictured as an anarchist with a bomb in one hand and a torch in the other. The sewers of mendacity and the cesspools of malignity were scraped dry and the contents hurled against the name and character of the people's friend. They succeeded in driving him from office and ruining his fortune, but with his back to the wall and his face to the stars, Altgeld gave back blow for blow, and in justification of his course left as a monument to his name and a vindication of his acts and motives state papers that will be more imperishable than all the monuments of granite and bronze that were ever erected; aye, more enduring than the pyramids that in the Egyptian deserts have withstood the shock of forty centuries. Ten years have passed since the great Governor of Illinois and true friend of the people has been called to his reward, and now as the impartial student of history in the privacy of his library reads the splendid messages of Governor Altgeld, in which he explains his pardon of the condemned anarchists, and his protest against the unlawful usurpation of federal authority by President Cleveland, he cannot but be convinced that Altgeld was a statesman of lofty character and sublime courage. Nor is his character disclosed solely in his public messages. All through the essays, treatises and speeches, which he left behind him, we find the lofty ideas of the humanitarian and philosopher. In warning the young man of the danger of the lust of wealth, he asks: “Which should a young man starting in life prefer: to be able to stand erect in God's sunlight and take his chances, free from ADDRESS OF EX-MAYOR. E. F. DUNNE 27 the burden of tainted dollars; or a fortune of ill-gotten wealth with the deformity of soul, the destruction of noble manhood, the blight of dissipation and physical disintegration that too often accompany such an inheritance?” In speaking of fortunes amassed from ill-requited labor, he asks: “Can we expect our children to be happy and free from inherited blight if we give them the money we have made from under-paying the labor that helped us amass a fortune?” In discussing the unjust burdens of labor under existing laws, he blazed the way for remedial legislation which only last year has been enacted in this State. These were his words: “In all large industries accidents happen, laborers get crippled, crushed, killed. This means widows, poverty and wretchedness. Justice requires that accidents should be charged up to the business that those who are maimed should be cared for by those for whom they toiled.” In discussing the evils of a standing army on another Occasion, he said: “Instead of a standing army being a preserver of peace, it is a constant provocation to war and a continual menace to the lib- erties of a country. Tyranny must rely upon brute force, but Re- publics must look to the affections of the people for protection.” What a splendid exhibition of benignant philosophy is contained in these words written by him a short time before his death: “He who has deep down in his soul the knowledge that he has always fought for the right, and that he never knowingly has wronged another, could not be unhappy though the whole world were arrayed against him.” And in denunciation of the libertine, what truer words were ever written: “The man who ruthlessly abandons a woman who has believed and confided in him destroys himself; and, though he flies to the ends of the earth, the Curse will follow him.” And in discussing the methods pursued by the great dailies of his day, how truthful are the following statements: “Few men have grown great upon the large newspapers during the last generation. Many men of excellent ability, fine education and noble aspirations have entered the field. They became for a time more acute and better able to serve their masters, but they degenerate in character. No man can hide behind a hedge and throw missiles at people traveling on life's highway without deteriorating. “The great dailies lay the blight of their conduct upon all who are connected with them. The proprietor may wield power for a time, but with rare exceptions the same dragon of wrong conduct that swallows up the smaller men in his employ will destroy him also.” 28 A DDRESS OF EX-MAYOR. E. F. DUNNE To appreciate the stateliness, the symmetry and grandeur of a structure which is a triumph of architectural skill, one must not stand close to its wall and place one's hand upon its polished sur- face. One must walk away from it sufficiently far to take in at one glance its height and length and width and lines of beauty. And So it is with the contemplation of the character of John P. Altgeld. The comparatively few of us who knew him intimately were im- pressed in his lifetime with the grandeur of his character, but the multitude could only know him as a lying, malignant press pictured him in the heat of their Apache political warfare made upon him. As the years roll by and as the physical figure of Altgeld is falling into dust and fading from the memory of those who knew it, the historical figure of Altgeld looms, through the vanishing fog of misrepresentation, larger, clearer and greater. His works and Words are preserved in history and make for him a monument in the hearts of all men and women who love truth, justice, humanity and courage. Well may it be said of the great friend of the weak and lowly, who offered his life for his country at 16 and sacrificed it for human- ity at 55, in the words of the poet Pope: “Statesman, yet friend to truth, of soul sincere, In action faithful and in honor clear.” Daniel L. Cruice Few men had a larger number of devoted friends amongst those who direct us in matters spiritual than had John P. Altgeld; few men expounding so-called radical doctrines won for themselves a closer kinship with men of the cloth than did the Governor. With a conception of God and Christianity that immeasurably transcended the conventional beliefs of those around him, his appeals for a humane and God-like treatment of our fellows met response from many gentlemen ordained for the gospel. From no minister of the gospel did he receive a readier response than from one of Ohio's distinguished sons, a gentleman devout in the church and patriotic and unselfish in the state, the Reverend Herbert S. Bigelow. Address of Reverend Herbert S. Bigelow tºº While sitting here, I have been thinking of another name that it seems to me we should link with the name of Altgeld upon this occasion; for next to greatness itself, is the power of appreciating greatness. (Applause.) There is a man whose great devotion to Governor Altgeld is no doubt responsible for the fact that we are here this afternoon. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.” (Applause.) There is a man, not in evidence, of course, hiding somewhere out on the edges of the crowd this afternoon, a man who would have been glad to have laid down his life for Governor Altgeld; and I want that name Written into the record this afternoon. Let us remember the name of JOSEPH S. MARTIN. (Applause.) The drama of the life of Altgeld is pictured in these lines of Matthew Arnold: Let the long contention cease Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it as they will ! Thou art tired ; best be still ! They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee. Better men fared thus before thee; Fired their ringing shot and passed, Hotly charged,—then sank at last. Charge once more, then, and be dumb 1 Let the victors, when they come, When the forts of folly fall, Find thy body by the wall. One day these forts of folly will fall. A day will dawn when the harvest shouts of brave men, and the lullabys of free women and the laughter of Welcome children shall fill the earth with triumph and song. In that day when the forts of folly fall and men achieve this larger freedom, they will remember among those who perished by the wall, and remember with great gratitude the name of John P. Altgeld. ADDRESS OF REVEREND HERBERT S. BIG E LOW 31 Man's relationship to the earth is the basic fact of his industrial life. In every civilized nation today, that relationship is essentially injust. (Applause). And we shall never build truly until we find, first of all, how to secure justice in this most important matter, the *relationship of our communities to the natural resources of the earth. (Applause.) The tragedy of this injustice was illustrated to me a year ago last summer in the city of Calgary, Alberta, way up on the slopes of the Rockies in the great Canadian Northwest. It was night time, on Saturday night, and it was raining. Walking through the streets with a friend I noticed a long line of men and women, standing as people might, waiting for the doors of a theatre to open. But it was raining and I asked my friend what was the meaning of it. “Why,” said he, “the line is just beginning to form; you should see it tomorrow, Sunday, -or Monday—it will reach squares away; for at the land office next Tuesday at 10 o'clock there is to be thrown open three homesteads and these people are now forming in line merely that they may have a chance to draw a ticket on which may be the lucky number entitling them to one of the homesteads. I found in this line a man from Putnam County, Ohio (laughter), and last week I saw in Putnam County, Ohio, land that has never yet been touched by the hand Of man, and yet no man is permitted to touch it unless he will pay to somebody at least $150.00 or $200.00 an acre. Now, that is the tragedy. It is a world-old tragedy; an age- long tragedy; and that was the tragedy that sent through the gateway at New York, many years ago, two of God’s disinherited children. The old home ties had been broken and these people were leaving their old friends and the Old World to go out into the loneliness of the New to find a chance to earn an honest living. The mother carried in her arms a babe. They settled near Mans- field, Ohio. The babe grew to a boy of sixteen. There came the bugle call of a great cause, and he responded to it; enlisted in the Union army and stayed there until the war was over. Returning to the farm at Mansfield, he worked for his parents until he was twenty-one. I see this young man again with a pick in hand, working to make the roadbed of a railroad in Arkansas. I see him again teaching School in a little Missouri town. Again I see him, having been admitted to the bar, at work as the prosecutor of his county. But such was his sense of justice and so keen were his sympathies, that although he needed the salary, he gave up that job in the middle of his term of office. (Applause.) 32 ADDRESS OF RE VEREND HERBERT S. BIG ELOW And then I see him with nothing—almost nothing, coming to this great city of Chicago, meaning to practice law and earn a living. And the name of this babe in arms, brought to this country by two of the disinherited children of Europe—the name of the babe in arms, has been written in letters of gold upon the pages of history of this country—the name of John P. Altgeld. (Tremen- dous applause.) Just one word in characterization of his public life: Some men seek office because it means prominence, social distinction, honor to themselves. Perhaps we may say that that has been in the past almost the rule with our public men. But, thank God, a new time is coming and we are beginning to demand of men that they should go into politics, not to seek a career, but that they should find in public life a crusade to serve the people. (Great applause.) And that was the kind of a governor that Altgeld was. We read in the good book words that most beautifully express Altgeld's ideal of a public man; the ideal that he most exemplified: “Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercised dominion over them, and their great ones exercised authority upon them, but it shall not be so among you, but whoever would be first among you, let him be your Minister, and whosoever would be great let him be the servant of all.” Whosoever would be first in the city council or in the State legislature or in the governor's chair or in the White House, let him be your servant (applause) and do your will. That is the meaning of these progressive times. We are getting rid of the authority and dominion in politics and substituting the ideal of service. Yet, my friends, consider what it costs the public men who are true to the people. I got a telegram one Sunday afternoon from “Goldenrule” Jones of Toledo, saying he was going to be in Cincinnati that evening, on his way south. Of course, I arranged to have him fill my pulpit that night, and after the meeting I walked down to the depot with him. He boarded a sleeper to Nashville—purchased a berth to Nashville,_New Orleans was his destination. The Pullman conductor said to him, “Why, Mr. Mayor, you could buy a berth right through to New Orleans.” “Yes,” said Jones, “I know that, but you see it is this way: I am sick; if I were not I would not take a berth at all; I am sort of ashamed to take one that far, for when I am well I always prefer to ride in a day coach with the people who can't afford to buy a berth.” Well, that was Jones! The man agonized over the condition of the poor and died in a few weeks from that time. ADDRESS OF REVEREND HERBERT S. BIG E LOW 33 I was at the railroad station the night that Governor Pingree left Detroit on his way to South Africa where he died. He had come to Cleveland and there some friends met him and I spent an hour or so with him that night. He was a broken-hearted man. He had fought the cause of the people, but the power of organized wealth had broken his spirit, and he went off to South Africa to die, a martyr to your cause and mine. (Applause.) Again, thinking of the cost to public men of loyalty to the people; I stood One day on the veranda of a house on Euclid Avenue in the City of Cleveland. And a man put his arm around me—a man whom I loved—and turning to a friend who stood there he said to his friend, “Lewis, Bigelow and I are some day going to re-write the Constitution of the State of Ohio.” (Applause.) This man never lived to take his part in that work, for Mr. Bryan and I (applause) stood not SO long ago at the Open grave of this man, who, also, paid a great price to serve the people—Tom Johnson. (Tremendous applause.) But none of these men paid any greater price than he who became Governor of Illinois a rich man, and left that office poor; who scorned a million dollar bribe, and died without money enough to bury his body. (Applause.) When we denounce those who betray the people, let us remember to love those, who like Altgeld, served the people. (Applause.) In Russia, there was a girl, a student whose heart had become fired by the spirit of the Russian revolution. She joined a band of rebels, and helped to rob a government treasury train. This girl helped to steal money that the Russian government had wrung from the sweat and blood Of the peasants. She helped to seize it, intending to use it in the cause of the Russian Revolution. (Applause.) This girl was captured; she was put on trial, con- victed and sentenced to be hung. But in the province where her trial occurred, she had come to be in the minds of the peasants a kind of goddess of Russian liberty, and no one was willing to carry into execution the government's cruel decree. So to find an executioner, the government was driven at last to the political prison. The great door was swung Open, and out, dragging their chains and blinking in the light of day, came two political prisoners. Did they want their freedom? Freedom! Of course, they wanted their freedom | “Freedom you may have,” said the government, “if you will put a rope around this woman’s neck and hang her to death.” What answer did these men make? The Only answer they made was to drag their chains back into the darkness of the tomb. 34 ADDRESS OF RE VEREND HERBERT S. BIG E LOW I stand in awe of the God in man. That divine something that has raised up friends to freedom in every age; that divine something that has caused men and women to go marching up their Calvaries and to die upon their crosses that their children and their children's children might be free. And among the names in the history of America of men who have sacrificed themselves that others might be saved, there is none greater than John P. Altgeld. (Tremen- dous applause.) Daniel L. Cruice In 1896 a new empire was born, an empire in which the citizens were emperors, an era in which the nation was shaken from center to circumference in a titanic struggle between man and Mammon; history records a victory for Mammon; the facts record a victory for man, for since that memorable year there is more manhood in our social, industrial and political life than ever before. In that year many men traversed our country preaching the divine doctrine of unrest, and praying for equal and exact justice to each and all of the race, and those of us who hearken back to that year are happy in the knowledge that time and intelligence are win- dicating the protest then made. John P. Altgeld bore a conspicuous part in that campaign, and aided in laying the course and establishing the lines and limits of the contest. The leader of that campaign, whom John P. Altgeld cheerfully followed, and who rivals and who has rivaled the President of the United States in the title of our first citizen, is with us to attest his devotion to Governor Altgeld's memory—the Honorable William J. Bryan. Oration by William J. Bryan Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : This occasion is in itself an education. Ten years have passed since death brought an end to the career of the man whose memory we honor. How many of the citizens of this great city—how many among its more than two million—will be remembered ten years after death by a memorial exercise ? How quickly the world forgets How soon the water ceases to be disturbed after the pebble has sunk to the bottom In all this great State, how many living today will have such a mark of respect paid to them as you pay today? In its existence of nearly a century, how many men have lived in Illi- nois, who, a decade after their death, furnished occasions like this 2 How many in the nation with its ninety odd million; in this nation . that stands in the forefront of the world’s civilization; how many in this nation that has a higher average in all that goes to make up citizenship than can be found in any other nation living, or that has lived ? How many of the ninety million will be honored after death as John P. Altgeld has been honored year after year? Would you know the measure of the man? Would you estimate the influence he exerted and the affection in which his memory is Cherished? Compare the tributes now paid to him so long since his frame sank into the dust, with the words spoken of most of those who move among us as our great and influential men. How much would the nation’s millionaires give today for the sweet assurance that they would be missed as Altgeld has been missed ? (Applause.) It has been said that he entered office rich and retired poor; and that during his term he spurned a bribe that would have made him independent. But what of that ? Who, who was near enough to him to have shared his money had he kept what he had, Or had he secured what he would not take 2 Who near enough to him to have enjoyed it with him, would have hesitated to give it all in exchange for the recollection of his life and service 2 This occasion has its uses for the living. Aye! for the living and not for the dead should these days be observed. ORATION BY WILLIAM J. BRYAN 37 Nothing that we can say or do can lift him above, or pull him down from, the high position to which he rose. But, possibly, the fact that we are gathered here, testifying to our appreciation of what he was and what he did, will strengthen some to resist the temptations that come to all. Let this lesson, at least, be carried from this place: If the wife of any man, who mingles in the stern strife of public affairs, feels that her husband is sacrificing the home, or by his constant service of the state is drawn from the enjoy- ments of the fire-side, let such remember that much is by Our Heavenly Father required of those to whom much is given. A man so richly endowed as Governor Altgeld was, could not have rendered a small service or given but a minor portion of his time. The members of the household, instead of feeling that there is a pecuniary loss in the service of one’s fellows, must have their years brightened by the fact that such a public servant as Governor Altgeld keeps more than he gives away, and secures far more in esteem and love than money could repay. (Applause.) My part this afternoon is an humble one. The program has by inadvertence designated my speech as an “oration”; my purpose is not to deliver an oration, but rather to call your attention to some of the things that made Governor Altgeld strong as an exponent of those for whom he spoke; as an interpreter of the aspirations, the ambitions, and the hope of the Common people of this country. He was a public speaker of great eloquence. We might call him an orator, but for the fact that the Word is so much misunder- stood. Some people imagine that an Orator is One who is a master of flowers and figures of speech. I am afraid Altgeld would have disappointed those who came to listen to rhetoric. In fact, he would have so turned their attention from himself and from his manner of speaking that they would not have thought of him at all, but only of what he said. (Applause.) And in doing so, he would have put himself nearer to Demosthenes than to Cicero. (Applause.) Some one has described the difference between these two ancient orators by saying that when Cicero spoke people said, “How well Cicero speaks;” but when Demosthenes spoke they said, “Let us go against Philip !” It was his speech that made people listen to him, and listening, think. He had the two essentials—the two ele- ments without which there can be no effective speech. He had knowledge of his subject and earnestness in presenting it. He knew what he was talking about and he meant what he said. One cannot impart information unless he has it; and one cannot touch the hearts of others except as his own heart is moved. Eloquence might be defined as the speech that goes from heart to heart. 38 ORATION BY WILLIAM J. BRYAN Altgeld early learned that the Bible spoke the truth when it said: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Applause.) It is a poor head that cannot find reasons for doing what the heart Wants to do; therefore, speeches addressed to the head are not moving speeches, no matter how much admiration the delivery may elicit. But he not only had these two things that a speaker must have to be listened to, but he added to these essentials the things that strengthen and ornament. Clearness of statement is next in importance to knowledge of the subject and earnestness. The Declaration of Independence says that there are certain self-evident truths. If our forefathers had not been so conservative in the writing of that document they would have said “all truth is self-evident,” and then they would have selected a few samples of self-evident truth. (Applause.) The best service that one can render truth is to state it so plainly that it can be understood. I do not mean to say that any truth can be so clearly stated that everybody will immediately accept it. (Applause.) I believe it was Lord Macaulay who said that if there was to be any money to be made by it, eloquent and learned men would be found to dispute the law of gravitation. If any one doubts this, let him go to a court room when a case is on, with lots of money on both sides, and let him stay there and hear how learned counsel will gravely dispute each other until the funds give out. (Prolonged laughter and applause.) Not only was Governor Altgeld a master of statement, but he had that power that distinguishes those whom he described as molders of public opinion. The molder of public opinion does not create opinion. He simply gathers it up and puts it into effective form. Thomas Jefferson was the great molder of public opinion in the days when our nation was born and when the foundation of Our institutions was laid. But Thomas Jefferson did not create a love of liberty; it had always nestled in the hearts of men. He simply put it into language that men can use ; he gave them expressions for their thoughts that will not die. That was his work—that is the work of the molder of public opinion. Abraham Lincoln was the great molder of public opinion of his period ; and why P. Because he expressed more aptly than those about him their own thoughts and convictions. And so, one of the Secrets of Governor Altgeld's power was his ability to take what people thought and present that thought to them in language better than their own and to make his words thereafter their words. He was also a master of the art of simple statement. He knew the use of little words. A person learns in time that he has no ORATION BN" WILLIAM J. BRYAN 39 thoughts So big but that he can convey them to others in little words. (Laughter.) The use of big words grows on us from the time we enter School until we graduate. That is the summit ; after that we descend. (Laughter and applause.) I Suppose there is no other occasion on which a man uses as large a percentage of big words as he does in his commencement Oration. After that, when he comes into contact with struggling humanity, -especially if he has a message that he feels he must deliver and that people ought to hear, -he quits talking to the best educated people in the audience and addresses himself to those least educated, knowing that if he reaches them the others will understand. (Applause.) Governor Altgeld also gave us examples of the force that there is in happy illustration. The illustration is a powerful aid to argument; there is no better means of persuasion. Show a man that this thing that he does not understand is exactly like something that he does understand and then he under- stands it. (Applause.) Christ gave us the Supreme illustrations of beauty, simplicity and force, when he took the every day things of life and glorified them by making them the means by which he conveyed spiritual truth to the world. Governor Altgeld has left us some magnificent illustrations of the power and effectiveness of illustration. Let me read one which has, fortunately, been taken out of the multitude of illustrations he employed, and given a place upon his monument: ‘‘I am not discouraged. Things will right themselves. The pendulum swings one way, and then another; but the steady pull of gravitation is toward the center of the earth. Any structure must be plumb if it is to endure. So it is with nations: Wrong may seem to triumph, right may seem to be defeated, but the gravitation of eternal justice is toward the throne of God. Any political institution which is to endure * must be plumb with the line of justice.” (Applause.) Where will you find anything stronger than that? He takes that law of the physical world, which so far as our knowledge goes, is most universal; that law with which every human being is most intimately acquainted; and, taking that every day law, that commonplace law, he uses it to show how God has built His world. We watch the pendulum swinging to and fro, and know that each arc is smaller than the one before; we know that it is only a question of time when that pendulum will at last stand still; and, knowing this we have faith that right will finally triumph. 40 ORATION BY WILLIAM J. BRYAN • . It is the doctrine of hope; it is the gospel of confidence. It strengthens us for labor; we see before us the swinging pendulum, and by it measure those invisible forces that rock back and forth, but finally settle down on the line that is drawn between man and the throne of the Creator. This illustration will live. But, my friends, Governor Altgeld not only had these things that made his speech powerful, but Governor Altgeld had that back of his speech that made him speak; for a man cannot speak power- fully unless there is something that compels him to speak. Back of the man who would speak there must be a purpose; he must have an inspiration; he must have faith ! The Bible tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God — without faith it is impossible to do anything else of importance. (Applause.) Surely, without faith it is impossible for any human being to shape the conduct of others. He had faith, and it manifested itself in all the directions in which manifestation is necessary. A man must have faith in himself before he can do a great work; and he cannot have faith in himself unless there is a founda- tion of preparation for his faith to rest upon. He can have vanity; he can have egotism; he can have exaggerated self-esteem, but he cannot have the faith that accomplishes great things unless there is a solid foundation to build on. He must have faith in his prepared- ness before he enters the struggle, and Governor Altgeld studied the subjects with which he dealt until he was prepared. He knew he was able to meet any foe whom he might have to face. Not only must a man have consciousness of intellectual preparedness but he must have more; he must have consciousness of rectitude of purpose. “Thrice armed is he,” Shakespeare says, “who hath his quarrel just.” Can a man afford to go forth without this triple armor 2 The Bible makes it stronger; one with God shall chase a thousand,-and two, -put ten thousand to flight. Faith in recti- tude of purpose is a priceless asset to one who has a large work to do. Mr. Altgeld could stand before his countrymen and challenge them to search his heart for an unworthy motive (applause), and that is power! In the long run the man who pitches the battle upon the highest plane, wins. And a man cannot pitch a battle on a high plane unless he feels more than a selfish interest in the subject; it must be an unselfish purpose or he will be sure to disclose it. And a purpose that a man is ashamed to disclose will make a coward of him, no matter how well he may be equipped otherwise. (Applause.) ORATION BY WILLIAM J. B.RYAN 41 He had faith of another kind, and a faith necessary to do Ta work such as he did. He had faith in the people. If you had told him some men would be false, he would have replied that he preferred to follow the rule rather than the exception. It is better to trust mankind and be deceived Occasionally (applause) than go through the world distrusting everybody. People trusted him because he trusted them. And he trusted them because he loved them. You cannot trust a man until you first love him. You cannot find anything good in him until your sympathy goes Out to him, and then you begin to find that there is more good in him than you thought; and the more you recognize it, the more it grows. Of all whom the world has loved, it has been said, “they loved him because he first loved them.” Altgeld loved humanity. Their Cause was his cause. If, looking at himself, he discovered SOme talent that he had not known before that he possessed, instead of being proud, it humbled him to think that he had possessed it and had not used it for the people. His consciousness of new power brought to him a consciousness of increased responsibility and whatever happiness he drew from life came from the fact that he measured life by what he put into the world—not by what he took Out of it. He had faith in our form of government; no man can do much in America in public life who has not faith in our form of govern- ment. (Applause.) Jefferson had faith in our form of government. He understood men's weaknesses and their strength, and he under- stood that while the people would make mistakes in popular government, there was no form of government in which some did not make mistakes. Altgeld, like Jefferson, understood that in a monarchy the king makes mistakes for the people, and that he usually lives up to his opportunities in that respect. (Applause.) He, like Jefferson, knew that in an aristocracy the few make mis- takes for the many; and that sometimes they find it so profitable that they will not correct their mistakes. (Applause.) Altgeld knew, as Jefferson did, that in a democracy the people have a right to make their own mistakes (applause), that God did not give to a few people a divine right to make mistakes for the rest of the people. (Applause.) Altgeld knew, as Jefferson did, that, because it never pays the people to make mistakes, they are not as apt to make them as those who find it profitable. Altgeld knew, as Jefferson did, that, because it does not pay the people to make mis- takes, they correct them as soon as they find them out. (Applause.) Altgeld had faith in a government in which the people are the sovereign; and his faith is being justified day after day and year 42 ORATION BY WILLIAM J. B.RYAN after year. Had he lived long enough he would have seen the blessings of popular government enjoyed by all the people of the World; but he did not have to live to see it; his faith revealed it to him, and he died knowing that our form of government would Spread. He had more than the faith I have mentioned. All these would have been insufficient but for one form of faith yet to be named; aye, all these would have been impossible but for the one faith upon which they all rest. He had faith in God. That was the foundation of his faith. (Applause.) When he looked upon this world you could not make him doubt that back of the design there was a Designer, that back of creation there was a Creator. He lived in no world of chance; he did not fight without a knowledge of what is to come. He was strong because he believed that God stands back of every righteous cause with an arm strong enough to bring victory to his side. He declared it time and time again; it was the rock upon which he stood, and all other foundation is sinking sand. Take from man a belief in a Supreme Being and he can have no conception of the life which he is to live. Take from him a belief that there is a divine plan of which he is a part and existence is a riddle that he cannot solve. But let him believe that the God who provided a seed time and a harvest and so distributed His bounties that man, if he will but wisely use them, may find that which will give him needed strength — let him believe that that same God provided for man's higher nature as well as for the body, and man is strong to battle against wrong. The great secret of Governor Altgeld's influence over men was largely due to the fact that he saw farther than most men; that is, he had faith that outram the mind and the reason. You cannot reason out your path very far ahead. The man who is confronted by overwhelming opposition and cannot see a way to overcome it, will not die fighting unless he has learned to believe in a resurrec- tion. But let him believe that “truth crushed to earth will rise again,” and because he is more interested in truth than he is in himself, he will die that, by his death, the truth may triumph. (Applause). He had power because he invoked laws that endure. You will find one of the laws, one of the most important ever proclaimed in a quotation on his monument, and it is not a man-made law: “The doctrine that “might makes right' has covered the earth with misery. While it crushes the weak, it also destroys the strong. Every deception, every cruelty, every wrong, reaches back sooner or later and crushes its author. Justice is moral health, bringing happiness: wrong is moral disease, bringing moral death.” ORATION BY WILLIAM J. BRYAN 43 Where did he find that law? That is a truth that lies beyond the reasoning of men. It is taken hold of by that faith that stretches out towards the throne of God and grasps the verities that elude the mind. What does it mean to the world to believe that? And is it not true? How small the injury that one can bring upon another compared with the injury that, by injuring others, he brings upon himself! How slight the pain that we can inflict upon an enemy compared with the pain that the wrong doing will inflict upon us, if the conscience has not been seered by repeated wrong doing! Mr. Altgeld stated one of the great laws of the world and stated it with a simplicity and force that you will not find sur- passed. You may evade those who enforce statutes. You may travel, and in vastnesses and in wildernesses hide yourself from every human eye and from the clutches of man-made law, but God has provided no place in all His universe to which we can flee and escape from ourselves — from the accusing conscience. He was strong because he looked upon the world with a broader vision than most men employ. He took truths that some have not discovered, and with clearness of statement, power of illustration and tremendous earnestness he burnt these truths into the hearts and lives of men. I esteem it a privilege to be on this program today. I would esteem it a privilege to be simply one of the audience, without having part in the program. (Applause.) I am glad to come, as you are glad to come, to show appreciation of the man (applause), and of what he did (applause), and when we thus testify, we are not Only presenting the tribute of our admiration, but we are also reveal- ing the fact that we share in the purpose that characterized his speeches and his life; that we have caught something of the spirit that made him strong. And we shall go forth from this meeting braver, because our hearts have communed together. We shall go forth stronger to resist life’s temptations and to exhibit the moral heroism that shines out in his life; that moral courage which is the attribute that lifts man nearer to his God. (Tremendous applause.) The John P. Alged Memorial Association TO KEEP ALIVE THE INSPIRING MEMORY OF JOHN P. ALTGELD, VOLUNTEER SOLDIER, JURIST, STATESMAN, PUBLICIST AND HUMANITARIAN, AND TO INCULCATE THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE GOVERNMENT TO WHICH HE HEROICALLY DEDICATED HIS LIFE CHICAGO, ILLINOIS President, NOBER GOTTLIEB Vice-Presidents M. L. McKINLEY Jos. A. O’Donnell LOUIS F. Post JAcoB C. LEBosky Joseph P. MAHONEY Michael E. MAHER LEO AUSTRIAN CAPT. W.M. P. BLACK DANIEL L. CRUICE JAMES C. Russell M. F. STRIDER Secretary, JOSEPH S. MARTIN, 1231 Unity Building Willis J. Abbot, Chas. Frederick Adams Miss Jane Addams Peter Aitken Philip Angsten Warren Worth Bailey Irving W. Baker Martin Becker Rev. Herbert S. Bigelow Millard F. Bingham R. W. Boddinghouse A. J. Boulton James P. Brennan Edward Osgood Brown Francis Fisher Browne William J. Bryan Edward Cahill Walter F. Cooling John J. Corcoran Richard E. Corigan John W. Cox Rev. Thomas E. Cox Walter S. Cronin Ben. Danziger H. H. Devereux C. W. Espey MEMBERS Joseph R. Finn Joseph E. Fischer Jeremiah Flahnan Charles Gay Miss Catherine Goggin Henry A. Goulden A. J. Graham Richard C. Gunning Bolton Hall Isaac W. Higgs John P. Hopkins Tom L. Johnson* Ellis O. Jones Jerry J. Kane Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly A. F. Kinsella John J. Lentz Charles D. Lewis Fay Lewis Joseph M. Loughlin Geo. A. Mawman J. J. McManaman Thomas G. McElligott Wm. S. McNary Geo. E. McNeil Lee Meriwether * Deceased. UN IV. C. F J UN # } - V--- Walter R. Michaelis.” Douglas A. Petre R. F. Pettigrew C. C. Philbrick Louis Prang T. P. Quinn Redick M. Ridgely Raymond Robins Dr. J. W. Scott, Samuel Seabury Geo. H. Shibley Dr. Julia Holmes Smith Roger C. Sullivan M. F. Strider Rev. H. W. Thomas” J. J. Townsend Alexander Troup” D. Ryan Twomey D. B. Van Vleck Henry M. Walker C. A. Williams Geo. Fred Williams Peter Witt, C. E. S. Wood Dr. Rachael S. Yarros Victor S. Yarros * PREss of CAMERON, AM BERG & Co. 15-17 W. LAKE ST. CHICAGO 44. 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