political development of mankind, not generically drift away from that, but stimulated by the influence of it and carried on in the same spirit as a colony. Constitutions at the time of the great separation were of a similar nature. They were solemn compacts to make and obey just and equal laws. Our Federal Constitution and our state constitutions were made in that spirit. Did you ever stop to think what a different attitude our republic on the subject of dominion and conquest has taken from that which is usually taken by the nations of the earth in the treatment they gave to the territory that now composes the area of the United States? According to an old map-I am not much of a geographer-the State of Connecticut at one time had a plot of ground away beyond in the State of Pennsylvania. Did Connecticut hold to that and claim the right to colonize it and to hold it under the political dominion of that State? Oh, no! It was agreed that all the territory coming into the possession of the United States should be used for the creation of new states and they should be governed by their own citizens, devising their own constitutions and making their own laws under the Federal Constitution. And that, it seems to me, was a new movement in the history of the world.

"Our whole national development and our whole conduct, gentlemen, in foreign affairs has been in the spirit of the compact of the Mayflower; the spirit of making just and equal laws, not laws of inequalization, not laws to rob Peter to pay Paul, but just the same. laws for all men, and then to submit to them and to obey them.

"Now, I propose to pass from the national consideration to the international point of view. Suppose something of that kind had been done a long time ago by all the nations that constitute the peoples of the continent of Europe, would it be possible to have the scenes of carnage and conflict which unhappily face us at the present moment between these warring nations? But the nations of the Old World have never been able to adopt that idea of agreement and of compact. If you will follow through-and I am not going to weary you with historical details,-if you follow through all the great European congresses you will find that not in one of them has there ever been laid down an abstract principle of clear, plain, human justice to which all have subscribed and to which all have promised to submit and obey.

"The very first and the only general principle that was ever laid down in the international law of Europe was laid down in the Congress of Westphalia in 1648. That was eighteen years after our Pilgrim Fathers had made their compact in the Mayflower, and the principle laid down was that of territorial sovereignty, that every head of a State should have the privilege of saying what the laws of the people under his jurisdiction should be. That was the first, and it is still the basic principle of international law upon which our present system of international relations rests-the principle of ter

ritorial sovereignty, rendering each power absolute without any common law within its own jurisdiction.

"Now, if you follow down through the congresses, the Congress of Utrecht in 1714, you will find that there was no general principle laid down. The treaty that was proposed in that case was a treaty that was forced by the stronger upon the weaker, and, yet, the human mind was very much the same then that it is now. A French writer of the period wrote a pamphlet which was distributed to the members of that international congress, in which he called attention to the fact that states, as well as individuals, were bound by mutual obligations and ought to live in peace and amity with one another. And it was at the very moment of that congress that the Abbé St. Pierre wrote his treatise on the project for perpetual peace, an elaborate document in which he laid down the doctrine that the nations-the civilized nations of Europe-should form a central council and that that body should lay down the law for the governments of all the nations, and that if any one of them violated that law, or broke a treaty, the rest of them were to punish the violater, or the treaty breaker, and charge the expense to his account.

"Now, gentlemen, that was in 1714. That is two hundred years ago. It seems as if there was talk of international congress as if people were bound to break laws and tell the delegates what was right. You see it was so two hundred years ago. It is so to-day; and I suppose if we were settling the affairs of Europe here in America, we would have the United States of Europe in less than a month. But somehow or other they don't play. They won't do it. They have their reasons. They know what they are. We may optimistically look forward to this coming peace, because we know sometime peace will come. Somebody will be defeated or all will be annihilated, I don't know which, but I am sure that one or the other will, and when that time comes there are many of us who pray and hope that the ideas that were brought forward two hundred years ago in 1714 may be brought forward again in some form, and that there may be the idea of a great international compact, and that what we have heard downstairs to-night may come true, but all the nations will be united in peace and amity and friendship, and all that sort of thing. We hope it. Do we believe it?

"There have been a number of congresses since that congress of Utrecht. There was the congress of Vienna, where the process of vivisection was carried on the map of Europe to an alarming extent. It was all based upon the principle of the balance of power, a mechanical idea that if you could so divide up the nations so as to make the scales about even by cutting off a little piece here and a little piece there, and give that piece to this one and to that one, you could so adjust matters as to make a permanent peace. Well, that is a good deal like dissecting a strong man, by taking off an arm, or if he is not quite so strong, take off a finger or a foot, to

reduce him, and bring him down to the average. But that principle has never worked out, very happily. There have been many European coalitions. There was a powerful one formed to crush the imperialism of Napoleon, which was practically all Europe. Napolean had so much ambition that he looked forward to dominating the earth. And there was a coalition to maintain the Holy Alliance to crush out constitutionalism. Of course, the dynasties wanted as little of them as possible, and the history of that period is one of intense interest.

"Then came the great congress of Paris in 1856. Something was done there. Some international law was made, only to be too often broken; and then we come down to the congress of Berlin in 1878. Russia had overwhelmed Turkey, and had extorted from her the treaty of San Stefano, and it was felt by the other powers that Russia was getting too strong and too near Constantinople, so Bismarck, presiding over the congress of Berlin, called down Russia, silenced the provisions of the treaty of San Stefano and made the treaty of Berlin. There was at that time a concert of Europe. It was not altogether a harmonious concert. Sometimes the first violin led, but frequently it was the trombone. It was not a very harmonious concert, but it was probably better than no concert at all. And then we come down to the period of The Hague Conference, and there we had great hope. The Czar of Russia proposed disarmament, as if the strong man would allow you to take away his revolver and his sword and make himself as weak as the weak man, and when the delegates got to the first conference of The Hague they found that very few people wanted to talk about disarmament. It was buried in a committee, the common grave of so many human hopes. But it was not even talked about.

THE AMERICAN IDEAL

"However, there emanated from the United States, and the idea was taken up and it was discussed in the form of that conference, the idea of a compact — our idea, our American idea, the idea upon which our whole government has been founded, and the idea upon which much of our foreign policy has been founded. I say that, and I say it advisedly and historically. When we liberated Cuba from Spain we did not annex it and make it an American colony. We made a treaty with the Cubans; we made a compact with them, and that compact exists to-day, and we are acting upon it, and we are living up to it. And if we could have made a like compact with the Philippines, I have no doubt we should have done that, too, but those people did not wear clothes enough to make a compact with. (Laughter.) Some of them had too many wives. Oh, no, they were back there in that stone age, where a good many countries seem to have been. I do not wish to be personal, but they were not compact people, and we could not make a compact with them. The

question is whether we can do so now. There are those who think we can, perhaps, and there are others who think we had better cut the cord and set the whole thing adrift; let them go to anarchy, and let them be the bone of contention between others, and we stand by and look on and enjoy the sport, as you do a pugilistic encounter, if you do enjoy it. But, my friends, the American people do not enjoy it, and they do not want to see it. We have taken those people under our protection. We are educating them, and when they are fit for a compact, or when we can make an international compact to protect them, when we can neutralize them and the treaty of neutrality will have a chance of being universally respected, if that shall ever happen, then we may apply our compact treaty there. (Applause.)

"Now, gentlemen, it must be pretty clear to us all, I think- and I do not want to emphasize too much the idea that I have tried to explain this evening and it comes back to us - it comes back to the American people to stand by the grand principle that we have built our nation upon, thank God! We have a Constitution that is not shot through and through with bullet holes yet. We have a Constitution that is the fundamental law of forty-eight great and powerful States. We have fought over the interpretation of it, it is true; but it is a splendid memory- I say it is a splendid memory, sir, that even when North and South fought over the interpretation of that document, neither North nor South disputed it or repudiated it. (Applause.) I want you to feel, gentlemen, what a great and glorious idea that compact idea is, and I want this country, if possible, to stand by the old foundation to maintain those just and equal laws, which our fathers agreed to submit to and to obey, and if they cost us something to obey them, it is a noble and glorious sacrifice. And what else is there in the world for our European friends to look at except our American Union, and what hope is there for the future of the world except a right and honored and fair agreement to lay down with the promise to submit to and observe certain general principles of international compact and then live up to it? I see no other hope, and it seems to me that this little idea that had its origin in the little ship so long ago may yet play a great part and a great rôle in the history of the world.

"I should not like to spoil my reputation, if I have any reputation as a knowing man, by being too confident of an early victory of that principle; but I simply lay it down as a ground upon which I think we may all stand together. I do not believe that there is anybody here who does not think that that is a good, safe, and sound principle to stand upon, even if we always stand alone. I thank you, gentlemen, for your patient attention." (Great applause.)

Thursday, February 18

On this evening the members listened to an address by Captain John A. Cook, of Provincetown, "A Whaleman's Story," illustrated. This was the first event in the new Club House. Captain Robert A. Bartlett presided.

Previous to the lecture, the Club tendered a dinner to the Captain, at which Captain Bartlett was toastmaster. The speakers were: Charles L. Burrill, State Treasurer; Hon. Joseph A. Conry, of the Port Directors; David F. Tilley, ex-President; W. T. A. Fitzgerald, Chairman of the Executive Committee; William A. Murphy, of the Boston Globe; Louis C. Newhall, Architect of the Building; J. Mitchel Galvin; Capt. James Tilton, of New Bedford, who has the distinction of being the first man to winter at Herschel Island; and William C. Crawford.

February 24

The Club tendered a luncheon to Hon. Henry St. George Tucker, former President of the American Bar Association, where twenty members of the Club, in the legal profession, greeted him.

February 25

The members of the Club listened to an illustrated address by T. Philip Terry, "Japan and the Japanese."

Col. H. L. Hawthorne presided.

The speakers at the dinner preceding included, Col. S. O. Bigney, of Attleboro; Hon. Samuel J. Elder; and H. Staples Potter.

ART AND LIBRARY

NEW BOOKS

The following books have been added to the Library:

BIOGRAPHY

Life of William Henry Baldwin, Jr., John Graham Brooks.

Notions of a Yankee Parson, George L. Clark.

Reminiscences of the Eulogy of Choate by Daniel Webster, Charles Caverno.

Browning and Turgenief, Philip S. Moxom.

Love and Letters, Frederic R. Marvin.

John Singleton Copley, Frank W. Bayley.

Henry the VIIIth, and His Court, Louisa Muhlbach.

Luther Burbank, C. A. Anderson.

Favorites of Royalty (2 vols.)

Little Visits with Great Americans (2 vols.), Orison Swett Marden. John Gilley, Charles W. Eliot.

Thomas A. Scott, F. Hopkinson Smith.

Cap'n Chadwick, John White Chadwick.

David Libbey, Fannie H. Eckstrom.

Augustus Conant, Robert Collyer.
Joshua James, Sumner I. Kimball.

Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln (9 vols.)