Then the members sit each day, except Saturday, until their work is finished and they are prorogued by the Governor.

"Now every man and woman and child has the right to petition the Legislature for the enactment into law of any proposition which he or she may desire. That is a privilege which the citizens of no other State enjoy. Every man and woman in this State has the right to petition the Legislature for the enactment into law of any proposition that they think may be worthy. More than that, there are provisions which are peculiar to Massachusetts, because, after every one of these petitions is filed before we can prorogue, every one of those matters has to be referred to a proper committee, and in the Legislature we have some thirty-six committees; a Committee on Agriculture, Banks and Banking, Insurance, Mercantile Affairs, Judiciary, etc. The committee advertises that on a certain day, at a certain hour, it will give a public hearing. At that hearing every one that is interested for or against the measure has a right to appear and is given a hearing. Each committee has to report back to the Legislature whether, in its opinion, the bill ought to pass or whether it ought to be defeated. This is a provision which we have here in Massachusetts which no other State has, compelling every matter to be reported upon. Moreover, every matter has to be acted on finally by both branches of the Legislature before we can adjourn. These are provisions, under our system here in Massachusetts, which do not obtain in any other State. To show you that this right of petition is freely availed of, let me say that this year we have over 2,000 petitions which we must act on before we prorogue. Last year there were some 2,500 petitions.

"If a Committee reports that a bill ought not to pass, that is filed in the House and the House has to pass on it. Any member can debate whether it should pass, in spite of the Committee's report, and the House has to act on it finally, and after the House acts, it has to go to the Senate. On the other hand, if the Committee reports that the bill ought to pass it has one reading in the House, then it goes another day and it has another reading, and then it comes another day and the House decides whether the bill should be ordered to a third reading and if it passes the third reading then there comes another stage whether the bill should be enacted and on every one of these stages there is opportunity for debate. Every one in the Legislature has the right to express his views and urge passage or defeat at every one of these stages.

"After it has gone through that mill in the House, it has to go to the Senate and go through successive stages there. I have gone over these matters to show you how open and in detail how our proceedings are carried on and to show you that, if you are interested in any matter which is pending before us, the opportunities which you have on these successive days, if you follow Legislative proceedings to get in touch with your representative, and impress on him your views and explain to him your desires on the matter.

"It is after these stages in the House and in the Senate that a man

is likely to make his greatest impression, because it is in the open debate that a man makes himself most widely known.

"We never know how long it is going to take to enact a bill and we never know how quickly a matter is to be disposed of. The longest time that was consumed in debate here in Massachusetts was in 1885, and then the proposition before the Legislature was to take from the Mayor of the city of Boston the power to appoint the Police Commission. This was a measure in which the members from Boston were largely interested, and for three solid days they opposed the bill and they allowed no other business to be transacted. Governor Brackett was at that time Speaker of the House, and the former President of this Club, Mr. Elder, was at that time Chairman of the Committee on Judiciary and, after three days in which the public business had been held up by dilatory tactics, Mr. Brackett and Mr. Elder and one or two prominent members of the House got together. Coming in the next morning the Speaker only recognized those men and they put the necessary motions and the bill was disposed of, and that is the longest debate we have ever had in Massachusetts.

"The shortest time in which a matter ever became a law was in 1898, after war had been declared against Spain, when President McKinley sent out a call to the different States asking them to appropriate money. Governor Wolcott immediately on receipt of the President's letter sent a special message to the Legislature, asking Massachusetts to respond with an appropriation of $500,000. The message went to the House and the House received the message and, under a suspension of all rules, passed the bill. It went over to the Senate and the Senate, under a suspension of all rules, passed the bill. It was then taken to the office of the Secretary of State and written out on parchment in longhand, in pen and ink, came back to both branches and was enacted. In twenty-two minutes after the messenger left the Governor's office he returned with the bill, passed by both branches, and Massachusetts had been the first to respond to President McKinley's call. That was the shortest time that any measure had ever been enacted into law.

"Out of all these 2,000 propositions that have been pending this year, some are very serious. Of course, there are many that are ill-advised and express an individual grievance and many of them are matters which ought never to be there and take but little time to dispose of. You probably hear of them in the newspapers. We call them freak

legislation.

"Massachusetts has led her sister States in humanitarian legislation. Massachusetts was the first State to provide free schools, the first State to provide free text-books for her pupils, the first State to build great asylums for the reception of her unsound, the first State to build great sanitaria for her consumptives, the first State to build great public parks and playgrounds, and the first State to stretch from one border to the other, great public highways, the first State to pass a corporation law, the first State to regulate her public service corporations,

and the first State to say to the employers of women, 'You must so employ those women that they may fulfill their duties as mothers and wives,' the first State to say to the employers of children, 'You must so treat these children that they may grow up and take their place in the future as healthy citizens.' All along the line Massachusetts has led in humanitarian legislation, and other States have been glad to follow. She has been able to do this and she is doing it to -day because the men and women of Massachusetts have taken an intelligent and a wholehearted interest in the proceedings of her Legislature.

"Now, my appeal to the young men to-night is that you interest yourselves in the affairs which most vitally concern you, that you acquaint yourselves with the methods of legislation, and more than that, that you acquaint yourselves with the men who are making your laws, because in this great American republic to-day, we must have leaders in whom the people have confidence, and then the men and women who have at heart the welfare of the State, must stand behind those leaders and when they act for the best interests of all, they must uphold them, and when those men are criticised without cause when they try to drive out those who are unwilling to be loyal to our flag, but go under a red flag, when your leaders are attacked for standing against such men as that, then the young man must stand by the leaders who are doing right. I ask you young men, if you go away with no other purpose, go away with this desire, to stand by your men in public life who are doing right, and make it possible for your sons to say, as did the great defender of Massachusetts, 'I shall enter upon no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none; there she is and behold her for yourselves.'" (Applause.)

introduction of

The Toastmaster. "I hesitate to enter into an the next speaker because, in my personal affection I might say too much and, in his modesty, embarrass him. He is one of the greatest dairy raisers in Massachusetts; he conducts one of the greatest printing establishments in the United States; he is a Senator on Beacon Hill, and he comes much disinclined because he rather refrains from public speaking, but there are some men upon whose words we hang and forget the manner of their speech, and I, therefore, introduce to you a man whose public and private and business life rings true as steel, Senator George H. Ellis." (Applause.)

HON. GEORGE H. ELLIS

"Members and Sons of Members of the Boston City Club. First I want to say, Mr. Chairman, as a business man, that you want to be more careful of your endorsements or before the evening is over your credit will be no good.

"Your Chairman has stated truly that it was with the utmost hesitation that I accepted an invitation here this evening, and it was with the distinct understanding with Mr. Winship that I should come not to deliver an address, but simply to talk to the young men and boys here,

and that is all I am going to do. I ignore the presence of the older men. I am with the boys. It takes me back a good many years, I admit, to be with the boys and yet it seems but a short time, and I do not regret that I am not now with you in point of years. I am just as much a boy as any of you, and if you do not believe it, come out and spend the night with me, and get up at five o'clock and go a horseback with me at half past. I do it every morning.

"I hardly know just how to say just what I would like to say to you boys and you young men. I am going to start it by going back to my own early days and to some of the influences which have had their effect, I believe, on me and on my life. One of them trivial, very, and yet marked in its effect, begins with my entrance into business life in Boston almost fifty years ago, when I came from the farm into the city and, talking with a friend, the other day, somewhat older than myself, who saw me for the first time the first week I came to Boston from the farm, he said he believed I was the greenest little cuss he ever saw. I guess he was right.

"Well, some of you know, that there has been in the Legislature the past five or six years, a bill called the Ellis Milk Bill. That had its inception a good many years ago. When I first came to Boston in the winter and began work it was with a pretty small salary. Things were somewhat different in those days to what they are now, and perhaps a boy could do somewhat different than what he would to-day, but I slept in the office on a lounge and obtained my meals in various ways. I went home Saturday nights, and Monday mornings when I came in, I would bring in with me an eight-quart can of milk, put it outside the window on the roof of a shed adjoining, and that furnished me with considerable sustenance for the early part of the week. One of the Monday mornings in those early days there came into the office, associated with the office with which I was engaged, Rev. Edward Everett Hale, then a comparatively young man. He learned that I had this can of milk. He came to me and said, 'George, I want you to give me a glass of milk.' I gave it to him, and more gladly than any of you can imagine. It was not the biblical cup of water, but it was a glass of milk to a man whom I had already revered from my knowledge of him through the press. For the next few weeks and so long as cold weather enabled me to bring in that can of milk, Edward Everett Hale visited the office every Monday morning for that glass of milk, and there began with me an association with a man whom it was a pleasure, and more than a pleasure, for any man to be at all friendly with. He was not only my friend, and as he grew older he became to be more and more my friend, but he was, as every one knows, the friend of every man, no matter what his station in life, no matter what his nationality, Edward Everett Hale was his friend. (Loud applause.) This was soon after he had written 'The Man without a Country,' for which he was of course then noted. You are all acquainted with his saying, 'Look out and not in; look up and not down;

look forward and not back; and lend a hand.' Now, if there is any one thing that had as much influence with me in my business life as anything, it was the contact in those early days with such a man as Dr. Hale and others who were associated with him. I say that because I want to impress on you young men and you boys the value of your associates and environment. I believe nothing else will have more to do with your future than the sort of men and women with whom you associate. It is up to you to choose those associations. In my case it so happened that the association was chosen for me. It was none the less valuable, but boys just keep that in mind,—don't be caught in bad company; reach out for the men who are looking forward, not back and who are always lending a hand. That, I think, as I have before stated, has had as much to do with my life as any other one thing.

"Now I am going to touch upon another personal experience. I do not think it is good taste, I grant that. I wish you older men were not here. I would rather talk to the boys alone. But never mind that. In the early days of my association in Boston, I was connected with a weekly newspaper. In those days the distribution of the newspapers was different than what it is to-day. The post office did not distribute daily or weekly newspapers at all. They were all delivered by private carrier and, in our case, there were two men with pretty long routes who distributed most of those papers. I think in the second year that I was in Boston, there came word to us on Saturday morning—it was on Saturday the papers were delivered that one of these carriers was sick, and the question was what would be done with the delivery of the papers. It was a rainy, slushy day, the slush too deep for real comfort, but there seemed to be nothing to do but to see those papers delivered. I took those papers on my own initiative and delivered the route. I went down through the business section, and in so doing I went through the store of one of Nature's noblemen of that day in business whom some of you here have known, Mr. Warren Sawyer, a man who in the days just preceding that had been one of the most active men in the old Mercantile Library Association. You young men would not appreciate that the old Mercantile Library Association, before the Young Men's Christian Association or the Young Men's Christian Union were thought of, was doing very much the same work with the same class of boys and young men that is being done by the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Men's Christian Union and, by jerks, if we may say so, by the Boston City Club, represented by you young men here to-day. Mr. Sawyer was that type of man. I guess it would be hard to place him any better in your eyes than to say he was the George Coleman type of man. My trip that day took me through his store and it so happened that he saw me going through. He called after me and wanted to know what I was thinking of in going in such shape as that in rainy weather, no rubbers, no covering. I said it did not make any difference to me, that I didn't care anything about that. on and delivered those papers.

I kept