President Cleveland: Mr. President and gentlemen: I find myself today in a company to which I am unused; and when I see the Alumni of the oldest college in the land surrounding in their right of sonship the maternal board, the reflection that there nowhere exists for me an Alma Mater, gives rise to a feeling of regret, which the cordiality of your welcome and which your reassuring kindness can only temper. If the fact be recalled that but twelve out of twenty-one who occupied before me the chair which I now have the honor to fill, had the advantage of a collegiate education, a proof is presented of the democratic sense of our people and not an argument against the supreme value of the best and most liberal education in high public position. (Applause.) There is no reason why the walks of the most classical education should be separated by any space or distance from the ways that lead to public place. Surely the splendid destiny which awaits patriotic effort in behalf of our country will be the sooner reached when the men of education and our best thinkers, deem it a duty of citizenship to actively and practically engage in public affairs. (Applause.) The disinclination of our best men of education to mingle in political matters, thus consequently leaving all political activity in the hands of those who have but little respect for the student and the scholar in politics, are not the most favorable conditions under a government such as ours. (Applause.) And I think I see indications that in the future the thought and the learning of the country will be more plainly heard in the expression of popular will.
If I am to speak of the President of the United States, I desire to mention as the most interesting, pleasant and characteristic feature of our system of government the nearness of the people to their president and all their high officials. The close view given the citizens of the acts and conduct of those to whom they have entrusted their interests, serves as a regulator and check upon temptation in official life; and it teaches that diligence and faithfulness are the true measures of public duty. [Loud applause, cheers, and cries of "Good! good."] Such a relation between the people and their president ought to leave but little room in the popular judgment of conscience for unjust and false accusations and for malicious slander, invented for the purpose of undermining the people's faith and confidence in the administration of their government. [Applause.] No public officer should desire in the least to see checked the utmost criticism of all official acts. But every fair-minded man must conceive that your president should not be put beyond the protection which American fair play and American love of decency accords to every American citizen. [Loud applause, cheers, and cries of "Good] good!"
This trait in our national character would not appreciate, if their extent and tendency were fully appreciated, the silly, mean, cowardly lies that appear in the columns of certain newspapers, violating every instinct of American manliness, and, with ghoulish glee, desecrating the most secret relations of private life. [Applause.]
Surely, my friends, surely there is nothing in the greatest office which the American people can confer, which should make your president necessarily mean, sordid, selfish, ambitious and untrustworthy. On the contrary, the solemn duties which confront him tend to a sacred sense of responsibility. The trust of the American people, and an appreciation of their mission before the nations of the earth, should make him a patriotic man; while the tales of distress which reach him from the humble and the lowly, from the afflicted and from the needy in every corner of the land, cannot but awake his tenderest sensibility and his kindest impulses. [Applause].
After all, it has come to this. The people of the United States have a solemn mission, one and all, to perform; and their President, not more surely than every man who loves his country, must assume his share of the responsibility of demonstrating to the nations of the world, the success of popular government. [Applause.] No man can hide his talent in a napkin and escape the condemnation which his selfishness deserves, and the stern sentence which his faithlessness invites.
Be assured, my friends, that this day and its privilegas, so full of improvement, and the enjoyments of this hour so full of pleasure, will never be forgotten. And in parting from you now, let me express the earnest wish that Harvard alumni may always honor the venerable institution which has honored them, and that no man who forgets or neglects his duty, as a citizen, and to American citizenship, shall ever find his Alma Mater here. [Loud Applause].
It was intended that addresses should be made by the four members of the cabinet who accompanied President Cleveland, but being obliged to leave in order to attend a reception at Fanueil Hall, they were presented by President Devens and their addresses were omitted.
The next toast was given by President Devens as follows - The founders and the benefactors of Harvard College. May the seed which they have sown be gathered in an abundant harvest.
Hon. Robert C. Winthrop said in substance: -
I am most happy, sir, to be remembered in connection with the grand jubilee of Harvard fifty years ago. I remember well doing not a little hard work on that occasion, as secretary of the Committee of Arrangements, and it was my pleasure, sir, to lead off more than fifteen hundred of the Alumni. There may have been rather more still on this occasion, but there were then over fifteen hundred of the Alumni whom I lead in the procession to our Anniversary festival and exercises.
I look back upon that procession now to see only a host of shadows. Out of a committee of forty, two only beside myself are left, the prominent lawyer of Boston, Sidney Bartlett, and our illustrious poet who gave the charming little song upon that occasion and who has given a noble poem upon this occasion and who, we all rejoice to perceive, has renewed his youth like the eagle, after that brilliant flight across the Atlantic and that rapturous reception by old England. [Applause.]
Mr. Winthrop spoke with fervor of the festivities of fifty years ago, and eulogized "that young Henry Vane who presided over the little General Court of Massachusetts as Governor of the Commonwealth in that year, 1636, at the time the vote was passed endowing and founding and establishing this college."
His closing words were as follows: I am the only survivor of those who made speeches in the great pavilion, which resounded for three or four hours with the eloquence of Quincy and Everett and Shaw and Story and Saltonstall and Sprague and Daniel Webster, [applause] whose presence alone was enough to give dignity and grandeur to any occasion. Nor must I omit to allude to the fact that among those speakers was that accomplished and eminent scholar and orator, Hugh Wesley Green, who, only six years later died at the home of his friend, George Pickering, of Boston, having visited Boston as secretary of state of the United States.
Sir, I have done. I ought to have taken my seat long ago. I am conscious of the infirmities of age, of health, of voice, which incapacitate of justice either to myself or to the occasion, and I am more than conscious that there are distinguished guests here from other colleges and from other climes who have a right to be heard, and that I enjoyed my right fifty years ago. Let me only in taking my seat, give honor to my alma mater on this birthday of hers in the presence of all her assembled sons, my heartfelt hopes and wishes and prayers for her ever continued and increasing prosperity.
The president called for responses for various toasts upon the following persons: Rev. Dr. Creighton, of Emmanuel College; Dr. Charles Taylor, of St. John's College, Cambridge; Rt. Hon. Sir Lyon Playfair, University of Edinburgh, Dr. Dwight, Mr. Angell, J. R. Lowell, Senator Hoar. Mr. Rivers, Prof. Agassiz, G. W. Curtis, Dr. Holmes, Dr. Mitchell of Yale, Prof. Thayer.