MR. GARFIELD, INTRODUCING MR. CHURCHILL It is hardly necessary for any one to introduce our distinguished guest this evening. In planning this service it was necessary to have some one speak to us tonight who was identified with the life of our State and our town, and Mr. Churchill has very kindly considered himself thus identified with our interests, as we have considered him identified with the life of our State. I do not need to introduce Mr. Churchill, but I have the honor of presenting Mr. Churchill to you and of expressing to him in advance your appreciation and your very cordial welcome. ADDRESS BY MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL In the eighth chapter of the Gospel, according to St. John, in the thirty-first and thirtysecond verses, it is written thus: "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed in him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." It seems to me, my friends, that this is a meeting of a very great significance. As I have sat here tonight I have been wondering what those old pioneers who founded that first Union Church down in the wood, with their rifles on the racks beside them, would Rev. John P. Garfield Pastor Congregational Church have thought if they could have seen this service in Claremont tonight. It was a time of extraordinary dissension. In 1764 one of the greatest eras-one of the greatest revolutions in the history of the world was then brewing, a revolution in which man GEORGE H. STOWELL, a leader in the business life of Claremont for many years, was born in Cornish, October 28, 1835, the fifth son and ninth child of Amasa and Betsey (Spaulding) Stowell. His early life was spent in farm labor, with such educational opportunities as the district school afforded. In 1860, he removed to Claremont where he has since resided. For the first four years he was engaged in the marble business, but in 1864, he bought the hardware stock of Levi B. Brown in the corner store of the O. J. Brown block, and there carried on an extensive and constantly increasing wholesale and retail trade in hardware, iron and steel, continuing in the same site for thirty-seven years, until his retirement from this line of business, in 1901. In connection with his hardware business, he dealt extensively in coal for many years, having brought into town the first carload of anthracite used for domestic purposes. His establishment, known as "Stowell's Corner," has long been a landmark in the business section of the town. Mr. Stowell has been a leader in building enterprises in Claremont, both for business and tenement purposes. He organized the syndicate that erected the splendid Union block on the corner opposite his store after the fire of 1887, in which the People's National Bank is located, in the organization of which he was instrumental and of which he is a director and vice-president. He has also been one of the principal owners of the Monadnock Mills, since the reorganization of the same in 1907, and has given much attention to this business as well as that of the bank since his retirement from trade. Mr. Stowell was a member of the legislature in 1871 and 1872, a state senator in 1875 and 1876, and a member of the Executive Council 1881-2. He was a member of the staff of Governor Prescott, served in the Constitutional Conventions of 1876 and 1889 and was a delegate in the Republican National Convention in 1884. He also served for twenty years as chief engineer of the Claremont Fire Department. He made an extensive tour of Europe, for health and pleasure in 1888. December 25, 1857, Mr. Stowell married Sara E., daughter of Dexter and Eliza (Earle) Field of Chester Vt., a direct descendant of Sir John Field, the English astronomer. They had one daughter, Cora E., highly educated and accomplished, who married George I. Putnam, author and journalist, but died March 8, 1903. In 1912 Mr. Stowell presented his native town of Cornish with a handsome and substantial library building located at Cornish Flat. took a new step forward. And, curiously enough, when I was thinking over what I was going to say to you tonight (and I have dropped my work for four days in order to try to present something which would be worthy of this occasion) it occurred to me that I would bring in, among other things, the very situation which was then brewing in the eighteenth century, at the time when that Union Church was founded, because it was an era of religious dissension and it is a thing to do any man's heart good-make him thank God-to see all the fellow-citizens of this town united in the service of Christ in this house tonight. We are beginning to perceive that good and bad are not the definite things they once were. Evil, in the individual and in society, is mixed with good. We are now coming to comprehend that men and women and even children, whom we should have formerly looked upon as sinners, are victims of what may be called the structure of society, for which no one individual is responsible, but for which we are all collectively responsible. The "sins" of the capitalist and the sins of the local storekeeper differ only in degree, not in kind. And a parallel to the sins of the working girl may be found in higher circles, whose doings are recorded in the divorce It is impossible not to see a great significance in this union service of the churches of Claremont. It seems to me to reflect the courageous, Christian spirit of the day. We have come here, not to look backward, but to look forward; to consider those things which will be helpful, not only to Claremont, but to the nation, in the days which are to come. It is an era of transition. It is a time of hope, and also a time of doubt. What is right? What is wrong? True or untrue? Is the world, according to the orthodox teaching, ineradically bad? Does it belong to Satan and all his works? The modern spirit cries out against this doctrine, and the man who feels religion stirring in his soul declares that it cannot be of Christ. The greater our problems, the higher our courage. columns. All are victims of a philosophy of life, called enlightened self interest-but which might better be called the survival of the sharpest-which we made the corner stone of our government. Its golden rule is "Do as you would be done by but do it first." Two characteristics of the modern idea of sin are closed mindedness-which indeed Christ denounced with a vigor that rings today a refusal to study conditions in the light of modern science, to look them in the face, and a refusal to work to better them. Every once in a while in the world's history the structure of society changes. Society adopts a new philosophy. And it is just as true that philosophy makes a society as that philosophy makes a man. But a philosophy which fits one period will not fit another. Conditions change. When Dante wrote his masterpiece in the Middle Ages, the world believed that God had given its temporal jurisdiction to the Emperor. The very thought of a Republic would have been heresy and sin. Now we no longer believe in the divine right of kings. One hundred years ago the nations of Europe were at war. Chaos ruled. Now we are able to see some meaning in all of that suffering and misery. We know that the world is not at the mercy of men with irrepressible ambition. The war of the nations one hundred years ago was followed That war of one hundred years ago was preceded by an era which gave birth to a new and radical philosophy which changed the structure of society, which sounded the deathknell of the power of kings, and ushered in democracy. That philosophy was due to Rousseau and other men in France and England, and was called "the rights of man." It was terribly upsetting. It declared that every man, no matter how humble, should have the right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, and also a voice in his government; that the government belonged to the people, and not to kings. It by a period of liberal thought, of emancipation; a period of expansion, education, and prosperity, such as Europe had never before seen. For many years before that war took place, idealists had longed for the abolition of the slave trade. Men said it was a dream. Yet it was actually accomplished at the Council of Peace which took place at Vienna at the end of the war. It is also a fact, not generally known, that at that conference an arrangement just failed of accomplishment by a few votes an arrangement of the nations to put an end to war altogether, and punishing that nation which would insist upon a policy of aggression. The world was not yet ripe for this. was ridiculed and reviled by all the conservatives in Europe, and when we wrote it into our Declaration of Independence the world thought we had gone mad. It was a Utopian bubble which would burst in a few years. And what happened? France adopted it, after untold bloodshed. England adopted it. That struggle was in reality the revolution of an hitherto despised and persecuted class, the middle class, the manufacturing class. It gave every man an opportunity to pursue his business unmolested by monarchs and aristocracies, and resulted in an increase of trade, of wealth, hitherto unthought of. Eventually it made the traders and manufacturers the |