THE TWENTY-FOURTH

ANNUAL LINCOLN DINNER

of the

REPUBLICAN CLUB

of the

City of New York

At the Waldorf-Astoria

FEBRUARY 12, 1910

Addresses of

MR. ROBERT C. MORRIS

REV. MICHAEL CLUNE, D.D.

PRESIDENT TAFT

ROBERT C. (CLARK) MORRIS

Lecturer on French Law, Yale University; Counsel for the United States before U. S. and Venezuelan Claims Commission; Agent and General Counsel representing the United States before the Mixed Claims (U. S. and Germany) Commission; President of the National Republican Club, 1909; Author of several works.

ADDRESS OF

MR. ROBERT C. MORRIS

President of the Club

Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you all to rise to drink a toastThe President of the United States.

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: On the 25th day of last September, the Republican Club of the City of New York was thirty years old. In that long period of years its policy has been broadly patriotic, and not confined to the narrow limitations of partisanship. Early in its career, inspired by a sentiment of patriotism, it began the formal observation of the anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, and we can congratulate ourselves, not only that we have held these celebrations for nearly a quarter of a century, but that they have been so uniformly worthy of their subject. Our Lincoln celebrations have been preeminent for the great men they have called together and for the spirit they have always manifested of devotion to a great life and a great cause. If we could bring together here to-night all those who have graced these occasions as our guests of honor, we should have almost every leader of the Republican party in the last twenty-five years. Our honored guest of this evening is the fourth President of the United States whom we have entertained on Lincoln's birthday-Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt. All these have stood upon this plat