BANQUET. 271 



at the side of the room. But when they took these screens down and I saw that the load line — 

 the American load line — ^the American registered load line — was sometimes measured by 

 two fingers, but more often by four-finger depths, then, to paraphrase the words of the 

 Psalmist, "Then miderstood I those things and the ways of men that go down to the seas." 

 It was most interesting to me to hear these spirited discussions, not only on the load line 

 generally, but on the different lines of load, the individual, personal load line and line of 

 loads, and then I grasped why we must have an American registry of each individual load 

 line and apprehended that, after Admiral Bowles gets the proposition carried through, every 

 one of you chaps will have a two-finger, a three-finger, or a four-finger load line which will 

 allow you to carry a cargo of sucli fixed nicety that you need not even provide an emergency 

 compartment for water ballast. 



After they got through discussing the load line they took up some other matters of vital 

 importance, and something I have heard talked about somewhat called the "freedom of the 

 seas." Some daring mariners took a hand at defining this, which is a subject of effort in 

 many quarters, telling just exactly and precisely what the "freedom of the seas" meant. 

 Now I may say to you that there is a good deal of talk in these days about definitions of 

 the "freedom of the seas" and, being a learned judge of the admiralty myself, I have had 

 some questions of that kind put to me. What is meant by the "freedom of the seas ?" Well, 

 gentlemen, "speaking frankly" and using quotation marks when I say "speaking frankly," I 

 have never yet told them what "freedom of the seas" meant. It is a hard thing to define 

 what "freedom of the seas" does mean. I know that Noah had freedom of the seas, for 

 there was no one abroad to interfere with it in his day and generation. But Noah, gentle- 

 men, was the only navigator or trader who ever had the real freedom of the seas. He must 

 have known all about it and what it was and what it was not, but you never caught Noah 

 giving a definition of it and I don't know but that he was right, for if he or any future 

 navigators, even as late as twenty-five years ago, had given a definition of the "freedom of 

 the seas," his definition would not have covered the submarine, and Von Tirpitz could well 

 say, "Ach, your definition doesn't exclude the submarine and therefore the submarine is per- 

 fectly lawful." The fact is, gentlemen, I am wary of giving definitions in advance. Now 

 take it in our own business. We have a word in the law called "fraud" — don't anybody get 

 scared about the mention of that subject; I assure you that I am not going to say anything 

 of a personal nature — ^but we have a word "fraud" and for two hundred years some 

 people, people who had a keen interest in the subject for various reasons — have been trying 

 to get the judges to define what "fraud" was, but the judges were a little too wary to define 

 "fraud," because, gentlemen, if you ever give a chap a definition of "fraud," then he will 

 try to do something that will get a little bit outside of the limits of your definition. No, we 

 were too much on our job to define "fraud." We judges say to the chap, "You go on and 

 do whatever you please, and when you get it done we will tell you then whether it is fraud 

 or not." 



What is this "freedom of the seas?" Well, it is a sort of "go as you please," "free for 



