45 2 Presidential Addresses 



a heritage the memory of the valor and the loyalty 

 to the right as to each it was given to see the right, 

 shown alike by the men who wore the blue and the 

 men who wore the gray, in the great days of the 

 Civil War. Terrible though that contest was, in 

 which with blood and tears and sweat, with the suf- 

 fering of men and the sorrow of women, the gen- 

 eration of Lincoln and Grant purchased for us 

 peace and union, it paid for itself over and over 

 again by what it left to us not merely a reunited 

 land, not merely a land in which freedom was a 

 fact instead of only a boast, but above all the right 

 as Americans to feel within us the lift toward lofty 

 things which must come to those who know that 

 their fathers and forefathers have in the supreme 

 crisis entirely shown themselves fit to rank among 

 the men of all time. 



I want to say just one thing more. I feel that 

 the men of this Association and of kindred associa- 

 tions are not only adding to the common fund of 

 pleasure, but are doing genuine missionary work 

 of a needed kind when they hold such a festival 

 as this. I wish that everywhere in our country we 

 could see clubs and associations including all our 

 citizens, similar in character to that Society which 

 has furnished the reason for the assembling of this 

 great audience to-night. No greater contribution 

 to American social life could possibly be made than 

 by instilling into it the capacity for Gemuthlichkeit. 

 No greater good can come to our people than to 

 encourage in them a capacity for enjoyment which 



