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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



has won and the deed he has accom- 

 plished. 



THK toastmaste;r 



We have at our tables many repre- 

 sentatives from our National Congress 

 from both houses of that great body. 

 We mean no disparagement to the legis- 

 lative institutions of any other country 

 when I say that the American people 

 have a proper reverence and respect for 

 their own representatives. I do not be- 

 lieve that there is a cleaner, an abler body 

 of national representatives met anywhere 

 in the world than the National Legisla- 

 ture of the United States. We are 

 honored tonight by having at our board 

 the Speaker of the House of Representa- 

 tives. People do not apply an endearing 

 term to a public man that they do not 

 down deep in their hearts respect, and I 

 shall, as an honor to the National Geo- 

 graphic Society, ask the Speaker of the 

 National House of Representatives to say 

 a word at this board. 



SPEAKER CANNON 



Mr President, ladies and gentlemen of 

 the National Geographic Society, and 

 guests : It is supposed that the present 

 incumbent of the Speaker's chair is a 

 czar. Such being the case, the rules of 

 the House in committee of the whole on 

 the state of the Union will be enforced; 

 that is, the five-minute rule. Note the 

 time and let your gavel fall at the end 

 of five minutes, unless I leave the floor 

 earlier than that. 



I am glad to be here. I am glad that 

 the National Geographic Society have 

 settled one thing. Peary or Cook found 

 the North Pole, and you stated which, 

 and I have implicit confidence in your 

 judgment. How marvelously the nine- 

 teenth century has witnessed the opening 

 of events which three hundred years 

 prior thereto the nations of Europe sent 

 in their colonies to the new continent to 

 struggle for mastery. Their bones are 

 dust and their souls are with the saints, 

 but the coming of the French and the 

 German and the Scandinavian and the 

 inhabitants of Great Britain, and the 



present coming of the Italians and the 

 Hungarians, and the Spanish who came 

 first and wrought great things in the new 

 continent, have settled all questions. We 

 are glad to congratulate ourselves in the 

 United States that we have the most 

 enterprising and of the best of those 

 countries that have made our own coun- 

 try their country, and have been assimi- 

 lated and form our civilization. You 

 cannot sing the Banzai national air, you 

 cannot sing "The Campbells Are Com- 

 ing," you cannot sing "The -Watch on the 

 Rhine" — which always seemed to me in 

 comparison with all the other music like 

 the grinding of a great glacier — you can- 

 not sing them anywhere in the boundaries 

 of the Republic but what the huzzas will 

 come. How marvelously the progress ! 



I am but yet a young man, and yet I 

 recollect very well when it was gravely 

 proposed in the Senate of the United 

 States that a statue should be erected to 

 the god Terminus on the peaks of the 

 Rocky Mountains, and that should be our 

 western boundary. All questions of ter- 

 ritory have been settled, and the United 

 States is the common territory of what 

 we can gladl}^ say is the best blood of the 

 European countries. I say best blood 

 because the enterprising young men come 

 to new countries that promise in their 

 judgment a reward for their enterprise 

 and courage. I am glad that the North 

 Pole has been found. I am glad for 

 many reasons. In the first place it will 

 stop adventurers after notoriety or ad- 

 venturers in fact from endeavoring to 

 discover the pole. We know now whether 

 there is land there, and I am glad to 

 know there is no land there and I can 

 prove it by Peary, because there is no 

 chance for any discussion about the con- 

 servation of natural resources. There 

 can be no ice factoi:y, because it is brack- 

 ish and the ice would be worthless. 



I am glad to be with this Society. I 

 have had many invitations. It has so 

 happened that this is the first one that 

 I have been able to accept. But, after 

 looking into your faces and congratulat- 

 ing you over the history of this Society — 

 over the founder of the Society, who has 



