376 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



ors. One interview, however, with Mr. Spencer was 

 published in the leading newspapers of the Union. It 

 contained his famous dictum that Americans are grad- 

 ually losing their liberties, through not insisting. on 

 their rights in what they are pleased to consider small 

 matters. The interview provoked much comment and 

 criticism. Followed up as it was by his widely quoted 

 speech at Delmonico's, and within a few months by his 

 papers on Man vs. The State, reprinted in The Popular 

 Science Monthly, he may be credited with having 

 helped forward two important movements : first, that 

 which tends to arouse public conscience with regard 

 to the dangerous encroachments of monopolies and 

 buccaneering corporations of all kinds ; second, that 

 which issues in the increasing habit of holiday-making, 

 which disperses every summer a growing percentage 

 of the dwellers in cities along the seashore, among 

 meadows, hills, and forests. 



Mr. Spencer's delicate health had rendered him in- 

 capable of accepting a tithe of the hospitality proffered 

 him, but the desire that he should be entertained at a 

 public banquet before his embarkation was so warmly 

 expressed that to decline was out of the question. On 

 November Qth, therefore, the banquet took place at 

 Delmonico's. The event is memorable in the annals of 

 New York entertainments, not only for the brilliant 

 company it assembled, but for the permanent value of 

 much that was said by the speakers of the evening. 

 Mr. Spencer was so exhilarated by the splendid occa- 

 sion that its excitements left him better rather than 

 worse. 



Among the few letters connected with the period 

 while Spencer was in America I find the following 

 pleasant and characteristic effusion from Mr. Beecher : 



