history emblazoned by the laws of more than a hundred years of peace, if I read their past as recorded in five great wars during our existence, the mission of the American people is undivided, is unalterable, is God-given, and must be performed; and that mission is that wherever men need succor, and we can, in the discharge of our duties bring it to them, we must do it.

We began by freeing ourselves, we began by establishing a government whose corner-stone is justice and liberty; we carried our purposes forward, until we freed all that stood within our borders, and suddenly the door is opened, the way is pointed out, and before us lies a new region, where to the finger of the Almighty points, and He says, there to the men of other lands you must carry the liberty which you have kept under my guidance for more than a century of time. And if that is true, if the American people has that mission to perform, we should see to it that we fail in no particular of the duty that has been entrusted to

us.

There was no greater climax in time, there was no greater surprise to its actors, than that which happened on the 1st of May, when the constellation of the American flag rose in all its splendor in the ancient waters of the Pacific. It came there as if the old miracle had been repeated, and the star of hope set anew before humanity. We went because we were led by powers that can not be controlled. We went because destiny drove us. We went because the mighty events and powers that lay in our past moved us, irresistibly, to the new issue and the new fields.

What shall we do? retire tamely, my countrymen, from the land won by the prowess of our boys? Shall we shrink from the task of giving liberty to those that dwell on the islands of the seas because they are distant from us? shall we shrink from that task because they are barbarians or semi-savage? shall we shrink from that task because insuperable difficulties rise to the imagination of the doubtful and fearing? Such has not been the process of American civilization. I look back over only three generations of men, and see this country, where we sit at this very hour, surrounded by all that American civilization can bring to elevate and comfort and gladden mankind, this country, full of churches and schools and happy homes and of the mightiest achievements of happy labor, a wilderness, where the savage prowled and where the proudest trophy of mankind was the scalp that hung to the

belt of the warrior, and where the happiest hour of existence was that when the savage danced about the stake where his victim died; and yet in that three generations of time we have seen American civilization go forward until the very savages themselves have become the allies of our soldiery; and at San Juan and at El Caney the sons of the red man rode by the sons of our own people, victorious over a civilization no longer fit to hold its place on this western land.

I need not go back to the savage to find an illustration. All you veterans of the army that sit around me will remember in 1864 and 5, we looked upon the hordes numbered by the tens of thousands that swarmed in from the plantations of the South, where our columns moved, and opened up the way of liberty. They came, Mr. Chairman, as rude savages, almost, as when their ancestors were imported from Africa. They were clad in the flimsy robes that hard times and avarice accorded to the slave. They danced their savage dances in our sight. They lifted their hands in exultation for a liberty which they could not comprehend, except that it released them from daily toil. Four millions of such people were brought to the alembic of American institutions, and there were those in those days who said, Let us not deal with this mighty mass, let us export them, let us colonize them, let us reserve citizenship from them, let us do anything to protect ourselves from the influence of this vast mass of superstition and ignorance. And yet, such has been the magnificent power of our institutions, so truly have they been founded upon the knowledge of human life, the human heart and the human soul, that we have since that time seen governors and senators and representatives and judges chosen from among the men of that African race whom we saw enslaved only a generation ago, and in the wild rush that carried the flag of Spain from Cuba and from Porto Rico, by the thousands the sons of Africa helped to keep the jewel of liberty in the human family.

At the close of the war the emancipated slave in Texas was farther from the national capital than are the inhabitants of the islands of the Philippines. We are within twenty-four hours of them by telegraph, and three weeks by boat. Shall we be afraid of the trust that has come to us? If we are fearful of its execution, to whom shall we turn them back? To the Spaniard? God forbid. His bloody hands are reeking with the blood of four

Shall we partition That would be sim

centuries of men who have striven to be free. these lands among the monarchs of Europe? ply to extend the empires of absolutism. Shall we give them up to their own devices? The answer to that, Mr. President, is dual. We, entrusted with their liberty, must preserve them until such time as they are ahle and desirous of self-government, if that time shall ever come.

In the meantime, my countrymen, it seems to me that we have got to enter on this field, we have got to keep that which fate and destiny have given to us, we have got to apply to these islands the institutions, the laws and the genius of America, and even if they walk as children today we must remember that the hour of their manhood may come as soon as the hour of the manhood of the slave came to him.

There is nothing in the situation, as it occurs to me, that for one instant threatens us. Instead of being elements of weakness, they will become elements of strength; instead of being provinces, that we must keep by the sword, they will help us, by their love of liberty, to cling to the great center of American life.

There has been much said, my countrymen, in recent years, about the universal pacification of the world. I believe in it, I pray for it. As a man who has seen the horrors of war, face to face, and has known it by the sad testimony of the younger men. of today, I pray that the God of nations may hasten the time when wars will be waged no more, when the vast nations of this earth shall be joined in one harmonious band, but I do not believe that that will ever be obtained by the process now most in favor, the establishment of courts of arbitration, which must be backed by standing armies of the contracting powers. I believe that the reign of peace will come upon this earth as it has come to this continent in the past, by the addition from time to time, as opportunity and destiny shall require, of star after star to the mighty constellation of our flag, until all the nations of the earth, embracing the principles of our constitution, are one United States, not of America, but of the world.

I love the idea of arbitration, but as I said, Mr. Commander, the thing that lies at the back of arbitration is the consent, which at any time may be wrested away by ambition or bad motives, and the power that lies back of arbitration is the standing armies of the contracting parties, and they never yet, not even under a

Czar of Russia, have led to the making of peace. The thing that makes for peace is that the principles of the American Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution should go around this world, triumphant and accepted by the nations of the earth.

And now we have an opportunity at this time, by all the ways across the ocean east and west, to set up, maintain and make regnant these principles. With the eight millions of the Philippines and the half million of Hawaii, with the Ladrones, with Cuba and Porto Rico, it is for us to see that the blessings of liberty shall be brought to them, and that they shall be kept under the protectorate which has been made there by the interposition and edict of the Supreme Power. And if at the end of our trial we think we shall have failed then it will be time for us to say, the harvest is not of our sowing; but if we turn back from this high empire now, if we surrender these people again, either to ignorant personal guidance or to arbitrary power, we have sowed a harvest, the reaping of which will be years of weeping, years of sorrow, and of disappointment to humanity.

I see the flag of the Republic rising higher and higher in all the islands of the sea, a flag unknown in that western water until a few years before the outbreak of our war, Perry thundered with the navy at the gates of Japan, and the art and mind treasures of that glorious kingdom were made the property of the world, and Japan has steadily advanced since that time, until she stands today virtually our ally in those far lands. The story of our great war has been told to the ears of the listening millions there, until the name of American and the name of America have come to be to them the greatest and brightest and best in the world.

You hear something of Gomez and Garcia in Cuba, struggling for years and years against overwhelming power. What was it that kept rebellion alive in their borders, and that made their camp fires luminous with the hope of liberty? It was the recollection and knowledge that the American people had won their liberty, and that American help might possibly be extended to them. What was it that for three years and a half enabled Aguinaldo to keep his forces in the field in rebellion against the hated power of the Spaniards? The hope and belief that some time or other, somehow or other, institutions might come to that land such as came to this. And now, when suddenly, in the course of six

months, in the far eastern and in the western lands, the dreams of these leaders and of the humble men that gathered about their banners are being realized, we will be sowing the harvest of shame unless we stand by them who have looked to us and raised hands of prayer and hope, and who have helped us to win this mighty fight in both the seas.

So I say, Mr. Commander, as it appears to me, the harvest that we will reap and which we are beginning to prepare in this year is the harvest of the spread of liberty, the enlightenment of humanity, the advancement of all material interests, of all the peoples, or, on the other hand, if we fail in our trust, it is the check and down-fall of liberty abroad, the narrowing of our influences, and the despoiling of our glorious record in that past.

If we sow in shame, we shall reap in dishonor; if we sow in doubt, we shall reap in failure; but if we sow in courage, with faith in liberty and justice, and God, we shall reap in glory, in righteousness and in power!

The toast to "Our Dead Comrades" was drunk, standing, and in silence.

General Hickenlooper said:

The next toast was to have been responded to by our comrade, Hugh R. Belknap, and in his place, as before, at the eleventh hour, a requisition was honored, not by a member of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, except through association and adoption, but by a citizen of Toledo, who saw extended service with us upon the same fields, under the same "Stars and Stripes," through almost the whole of our military career, Captain P. H. Dowling.

EIGHTH TOAST.-"The Stars and Stripes."

Response by Captain P. H. DOWLING.

MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

In looking about this magnificent banquet hall, I observe a large number of the citizens of Toledo, who were not permitted to participate in that great war in which these distinguished gentlemen, who assemble here tonight, played such an important. part. I am glad to meet them upon this occasion. I know they