ADDRESS OF MR. G. K. GILBERT 
At the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of 
the Club, November 16, 1903 
About thirty years ago Donn Piatt, the journalist, a clever and 
pungent writer, entertained the readers of the Sunday Capital 
by witty attacks on various persons and things. Among his 
victims was Dr. Hayden, the geologist and explorer, whom he 
dubbed “the triangulating Hayden” and who was goaded to 
wrath and misery by the weekly thornings. He turned atten- 
tion also, once or twice, to Major Powell, but the result was 
different. The astute Major may have fumed internally — I do 
not know — but his visible action was to seek the acquaintance 
of the troublesome editor and meet him socially a few times. 
There was no discussion ot the Sunday Capital , there were no 
favors, nothing was done but to establish social relations — and 
the attacks ceased. 
I recite this incident because I have been asked to speak this 
evening of the relation ol the Club to science and the scientist; 
and because the principle ol the Major’s diplomacy is one of the 
fundamental factors in the service of the Club to the cause of 
science. 
Those who search for the knowledge of nature which we call 
science are unfortunately quite as fallible as their brethren in 
other walks of life. False trails as well as true are followed, 
and it is often hard to tell which seeker has chosen the proper 
road. So there always have been, there are now, and there must 
continue to be differences of opinion; and the concomitant of 
divergent opinion is criticism and controversy. The inevitable 
battle of ideas, whether fought in print or on the arena of the 
scientific society, is by no means to be regretted, for it has a 
winnowing function that could ill be spared; but there is always 
danger that intellectual antagonism may lead to personal an- 
tagonism, that the heat of controversy may blind investigators 
to the community of their labors and interest, that egoistic am- 
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