enumerator called, asking what his nationality was. "That," said the man, "is just what I have been trying all my life to find out. My father was English, my mother was French. I was born on a Dutch ship, sailing under a Spanish flag, and trading in Turkish waters. Now what am I?" But this great and exuberant American life is grander because it is composed, as the sunshine is, of many strands, woven together-not of one. We do not forget the others combined with us when we meet to celebrate the day when our fathers landed; and the results are all around us of that complete, composite life.

They are in the industry which fills the land, to which our fathers contributed something, certainly, with their practical energy, determined to get the hidden riches of God's earth out of it, and to make the planet conform itself to the fashion which He would have it wear in the final day; in the restless enterprise which carried them everywhere; in the oldfashioned love of Saxon freedom, which should combine order with liberty, making permanent institutions the guarantee of individual right; in the spirit, founded on great convictions, which they propagated to those who came after. They contributed to the industry which raises crops at the West so heavy that they say sometimes the prairie sinks ten inches under the burden; filling the air, too, with the whirl of machinery; sending commerce wherever commerce goes; founding the institutions of the government so solidly that they cannot be shaken.

I used to sit last summer at my window on the northwest side of the White Mountains, and watch the storm coming up the eastern valley, breaking upon

the mountain, with its great buttresses of rock, in flame and thunder, with gusts of wind and rain, as if it would sweep the mountain from its base. The storm dispersed, and the old peak was there, untroubled, vast, and glorious as ever. Civil war broke on our national government, and it seemed for a time as if it would destroy it. The American spirit was too strong for it. The government remained in its security, thanks to these distinguished soldiers who are with us to-night, and thanks to the eminent statesmen who coöperated with them. I used to watch there the undulations of the clouds gathering around the mountain peak, portending storm; and, as they rocked back and forth beneath the impulse of the wind, by a trick upon the eye they made it seem as if the very peak itself, peering above, were rocking and swaying in the wind. We go through our four years' debate, and it seems as if the country were in peril, and as if the government itself were insecure. The debate is ended, the clouds disperse, and the government is there, only refreshed, purified and exalted by all the stress and strain of the debate through which the people, whose it is, have been passing. That is the result of this composite American life to which our fathers gave one element, and one important element: and it is joyful -it should be to all of us to know that now this day is celebrated over all the continent. Your President has a telegram, which he will read to you, no doubt, showing its celebration in New Mexico to-night. It should be joyful-it is-to all of us to know that it will continue to be celebrated as long as the Nation itself continues; as long as the hills of New England

stand; as long as the waters continue to beat, in volleying thunder or in musical laughter, on the strand and the rock which, two hundred years ago, took upon them immortal renown.

XIV

CONSOLIDATION OF BROOKLYN WITH NEW YORK

A Speech delivered on taking the chair at a Mass Meeting of the citizens of Brooklyn favoring Re-submission of the Question to popular vote, held at the Academy of Music, January 19, 1896.