The Annual Dinner 



29 



is from such men as Mr Taft that we 

 really learn our lessons in geography. 

 It is really from him that we have 

 learned all we know of the Philippines. 

 And who taught us what we know of 

 the geography of China? John Hay. 

 And now in my opinion we are about 

 to learn a lesson of the geography of 

 South America, from our distinguished 

 Secretary of State, Mr Elihu Root. It 

 is from such statesmen as these that 

 we learn the lessons in geography, and 

 I feel that I voice the sentiment of 

 those in this assemblage when I say 

 that I am very proud of it that I can 

 be here tonight to join in trying our 

 best to do honor to one of these three 

 great men. (Applause.) 



The Toastmaster 



Our next toast is "The Press." Many 

 good things came outof Kansas besides 

 bumper wheat and corn crops ; one of 

 them is the gentleman who will re- 

 spond to this toast, and just now I am 

 reminded of the Irishman who was 

 passing through a cemetery and he saw 

 an inscription on a beautiful monument 

 which read : "An editor, a Congress- 

 man, and an honest man ;" and he said : 

 "Faith, three of them in one grave." 

 (Laughter and applause.) 



Now, my friends, when our guest 

 who is to respond to this toast passes 

 over the divide whence no traveler re- 

 turns — and we hope it will be long, 

 long years to come — he can be laid 

 away and they can inscribe on his tomb 

 that inscription that the Irishman read, 

 and it will be true, and there will be but 

 one man in this sarcophagus. I intro- 

 duce the Honorable Charles F. Scott, 

 of the press, and of the Congress. 



The American Press — Mr Charles F. 

 Scott, Representative from Kan- 

 sas 



Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



First of all, Mr Toastmaster, I wish 

 to express my regret that the toast to 



which I am asked to speak could not 

 have been assigned to another. It is a 

 great subject, a noble theme, and it 

 deserves to be discussed by one who is 

 not handicapped by sentiments of 

 modesty from saying all that he really 

 believes. You will understand how 

 far your present speaker is from ful- 

 filling this requirement when I say that 

 I was born in Kansas, and with the ex- 

 ception of a few brief months of annual 

 exile in Washington, I have lived there 

 all my life. From my earliest infancy, 

 therefore, I have breathed the atmos- 

 phere of reticence and self-effacement 

 which pervades that blushing and diffi- 

 dent commonwealth (laughter), and 

 which has made modesty, particularly 

 when the riches and resources, the 

 glory and grandeur of our state are 

 under discussion, the badge of all our 

 tribe. "Such boasting as the Gentiles 

 use or lesser breeds without the law" 

 is never heard from the lips of a true 

 Kansan when his state is the subject 

 of discussion, for the actualities of her 

 development and growth make the 

 most daring boast of today sound like 

 the language of detraction and dis- 

 paragement tomorrow. And further- 

 more I am myself a part — an inconse- 

 quential part I hasten to confess — but 

 still a part, of the American Press. For 

 nearly a quarter of a century my chief 

 business has been the making of news- 

 papers — a business, as you all know, 

 which breeds in its devotees that dis- 

 trust of self, that deference to the opin- 

 ions of others, that doubt of one's own 

 infallibility which so far unfits them 

 for contact with a rude and buffeting 

 Avorld. 



By avocation and training therefore, 

 as well as by birth and environment, I 

 am peculiarly unfitted for the discus- 

 sion of a theme that calls for bold and 

 positive utterances. 



But I can well understand how one, 

 not a Kansan and not a newspaper 

 man, might rejoice at the opportunity 



