he might suppose it a Catholic affair; seeing here Bishop Hamilton and Dr. Gordon, he might suppose it a Protestant affair; seeing here Rabbi Levy, he might suppose it a Jewish affair; but then he must argue with himself that it cannot be a religious affair of any denomination or a political gathering of any party, because if it was these men would not all be here; and then inquiring he would learn that it was a City Club affair, and that all these men, representing, as they do, different creeds, different politics, typify the membership of the Boston City Club.

"I desire to call your attention to the corner-stone, as there is no counterpart of it in this city, or in this country, for that matter. On the occasion of raising the first shovelful of earth for the foundation of this building, President Elder placed the shovel into the soil of this hill, and when he raised it it was filled with sand-clean, bright sand, as you would find any place along the seashore. The shovel was crowned and full, but when he cast it from him it disintegrated and fell into thousands of golden, glistening particles, with no adhesion whatever. The thought came to me, how representative is this of the many bright elements in this community-bright, typical men that were not brought together, and if brought together would quickly scatter and I requested the builders to take this sand; that is, the thousands and thousands of particles and cement them together into a solid mass, and to mold this into the cornerstone of this Club, as it would be a constant and substantial reminder of what this Club is a solidification of the bright, clean members of this community into an organization substantial and beneficial, bound together, even as the grains of sand are bound together, making the corner-stone of your home, the corner-stone of the Club.

"It is most fitting that this Club House, the home of the Boston City Club, should be here on Beacon Hill. On this hill where, in the early days of the colonies, burned a beacon, erected in 1635, sending forth its rays of friendship, of guidance, or of warning to the scattered settlements which lay close along the coast; when the beacon shone on this hill, its light was answered by other beacons from north to south, each being a help and a guidance to the others, but all looked towards the great light on Beacon Hill. Here let the beacon of the Boston City Club shine forth, a beacon of encouragement to other cities who are following our example, a beacon of friendship and guidance for all men to know each other better.

"The corner-stone has now been laid. The erection of the building is in the hands of the builders, but the future up-building of the Club itself is in the hands of its membership. The builders have their plans and architects to guide them. You need no charts or plans, only a disposition and a determination to make the Club broader, more democratic, and of greater benefit to the community. Your guide is what you have already accomplished. May the membership and officers, as time goes on, make the Club itself as beneficial as the builders will make the building beautiful."

Brief remarks were made by the following members of the Club:
Rev. Harry Levi, Rev. Dillon Bronson, Rev. George A. Gordon, D. D.

Rev. Dr. George A. Gordon

Rev. Dr. George A. Gordon said that he came to Boston from Scotland forty years ago, and had had time to judge the city. He spoke of its chief characteristics as "a spirit of mighty independence and a vast public spirit," and added, "Its gates are open day and night to every man who will give a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. . . . There are as many differences of opinion in Boston as there are mosquitoes in the woods of Maine - and some are as troublesome. Governor Foss only names a few of them."

-

Mr. Elder then asked Vice-President James W. Rollins, Chairman of the Building Committee, to proceed with the work of beginning the erection of the superstructure.

Mr. Rollins described briefly the work of the committee in arranging for the new house, and presented to Mr. Taft the silver trowel, and asked him to assist the committee by laying the corner-stone. Mr. Taft had performed the work, he spoke as follows:

After

Address by Ex-President Taft at the Laying of the Corner-Stone of the Boston City Club House, Boston, October 9, 1913

"I am greatly honored and I feel especially glad, in view of recent experiences (laughter), to be called back to Boston. It is entirely appropriate that, being one of the few speakers not clergymen, I should begin what I have to say with a text.

"When the Apostle Paul, rescued from the fury of the people of Jerusalem by the chief of the soldiers, was seeking an opportunity to speak again to those who had been his assailants, he said, among other things: I am a citizen of no mean city.' A week ago Sunday,—in order to explain why I am familiar with that text,-(laughter) President Hadley preached his matriculation sermon to the audience at Yale on this text. In the course of his address, in which he enforced the analogy between the influence of a great university upon its students and the influence and pride of an ancient city upon its citizens, he said one of the best of the many good things about the ancient Greek was his intense devotion to his city. Athens had a hold on the heart of the Athenian such as no modern city and no modern country can parallel. Our political unit has become so large that patriotism, instead of being an ever-present, every-day emotion, too often is allowed to fall into the background until some occasional crisis calls it out. The Athenian's loyalty and the Athenian's devotion to the affairs of his city was of another kind. He was interested in every public work, military, architectural or dramatic, and it was on account of the existence of this sort of public sentiment that the men of Athens did what they did for freedom and art and literature.

"In like manner it was the hold which Rome had upon its citizens that enabled the Romans to work out the discipline which conquered the world by arms and held it bound by law.

"Again, it was the hold which Jerusalem took upon its citizens that

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"And so I say to you of the city of Boston, you are citizens

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"Comparisons are frequently invidious and sometimes dangerous, but in this presence I think I may venture to say that if one were to ask himself what city in this country more resembled a city of ancient time in having a distinctive character and in shedding the light of a beneficent influence on the world at large, he would unhesitatingly say that the city of Boston more fully satisfies that description than any city in the country. In prosperity, in business energy, in architectural development, in beauty of her surroundings, in educational system, in provision for the comfort and health of her citizens, she is conspicuous among our cities. In her individuality, which has marked itself in her long and honorable history, and is maintained in her inspiring traditions, she is easily first.

"She has been called the Athens of America. I do not like such a comparison, I do not believe Bostonians do, either,—for Boston has a character of her own that is not accurately or properly set forth by reference to other cities. In public and patriotic spirit, in intellectual thought, in literary achievement, as an American centre she has stood first among our cities and she stands there to-day. As the metropolis of New England she typifies that element in American character which we call the Puritan spirit, or, to use another expression, invented possibly by a less friendly critic, the Yankee spirit, the spirit which on the one hand holds each individual to strict moral responsibility and makes his conscience the court before whom he must plead, and on the other hand puts into practice the maxim that the Lord helps those who help themselves.

"We are here to celebrate the laying of the corner-stone of a building that is to be another evidence of Boston's practical, progressive public spirit. The Boston City Club, whose home it is to be, is a club of unique purpose and has had great success in its pursuit.

"It aims to furnish an attractive meeting-place to which representatives of all classes, on perfect equality and without regard to creed or political view, may come for association, conference, discussion, and organization of various municipal and public activities, to increase the benefits which the city may confer upon its residents, and to enable its citizen body to lead in the great movements of the country.

"It is non-partisan as a club. As a club it makes itself responsible for no definite reforms, but it furnishes, by the association that it induces and the rubbing together of the various elements in the body politic and social of the city, an opportunity for solidarity of movement among all classes toward better and higher things.

"Most of the differences between men of reason and intelligence

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anned into the flame of passion and vituperation through the ich side to understand the real point of view of the other, could ed, and indeed not infrequently would be made entirely null, social intercourse. That is why a dinner of contending parloften efficacious to allay bitterness. The atmosphere of kindly ✓ creates a desire in the minds of most to conform all their acheir surroundings.

his Club aims to fuse the hard and angular corners of crystallized man rejudice and partisan enmities by the glow and heat of an every-day con anionship and common social comfort.

"Conceived in the foresight and public spirit of its half-dozen founders, this Club has vindicated its reason for being by making evident the possibility of success in reaching its purpose. It has increased so rapidly in its few years of existence that it numbers in its membership nearly five thousand men of Boston's best representatives of every class of citizens,-poor and wealthy, employer and employee, lawyer, doctor, teacher, professional and business man, laborer and capitalist, clerk and superintendent, all attacted by the comforts of the Club, furnished at small cost to each member, and the opportunity to meet influential and leading men from every walk of life

"It is a unique organization, and furnishes to Boston the same opportunity for its betterment and for counsel among its leaders of all shades of public opinion as did the Roman forum or the Greek Agora. It has been properly called a clearing-house for the interchange of all ideas of municipal progress and of the preservation of the public weal.

"The success of this Club will lead to the organization of other clubs of a similar character in many cities. Already the public-spirited men of the rest of the country are closely watching its beneficent growth, with a view to following, as they have so often followed, the leadership of Boston." (Continued applause.)

This concluded the exercises of the afternoon.

Members of the Club then dispersed preparatory to assembling again at 6.30 at the Hotel Somerset for the dinner to celebrate the event of the afternoon. Nearly twelve hundred members of the Club gathered at the hotel in three separate dining-rooms, taking practically all the dining space in the hotel.

The dinner was begun promptly at 7 o'clock, and at 8.30 President Elder called the members from the two dining-rooms, and chairs were placed in the main ballroom for them. During the course of the dinner President Elder, accompanied by Mr. Taft, made a pilgrimage to Room B, presided over by Vice-President Rollins, and to Room C, presided over by Vice-President Dreyfus, where both gentlemen addressed the members assembled.

When all the members gathered in the main ballroom, President Elder spoke as follows:

CORNER-STONE DINNER

HOTEL SOMERSET, Thursday, October 9, 1913

President Samuel J. Elder

"There is an old Boston saying that 'Faneuil Hall is full to-night.' I am not going to pursue that quotation any further, because there are points in which its inapplicability to any member of this Club is too clear for utterance. But we can say that the Hotel Somerset is full to-night, and I am requested to add that more chairs will be brought in as rapidly as they can be found.

"I am very sorry that so many of our members who had applied for tickets could not be served. They are as deeply disappointed, I have no doubt, as you and I are. It was not a process of natural selection. It was a question of the order in which applications were received, and this is a meeting of the Boston City Club, because apart from the official guests, no guests have been received on this occasion. It is membership.

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"The difficulty of getting in reminds me of an old Virginian story of Senator Mahoe. It was felt down there by certain classes that the Senator really got all there was going, and that the good colored brethren who were supporting him did not get much of anything. And finally in one of his campaigns an old darky preacher was set up on the stump, who had just one thing to tell, a dream, and it was this:

"That he went up to the Pearly Gate, and upon rapping, the slide was pulled away and St. Peter asked who he was. He said he was an old preacher from Virginia, and as he told it on the stump, St. Peter asked, 'Is you afoot or is you mounted?'

"Ah told him ah was a poor darky preacher and ah was afoot; that ah was poor and didn't have no mule.

"He said, "You can't come in he'ar; nobody come in he'ar 'less he's mounted."

'So ah went down the hill toward the other place, an' ah thought, "What'll ah do? Ah can't get in thar' 'cause ah ain't mounted.",

"And as ah came along back who should ah see a-walkin' along but Sen'tor Mahoe.

"Ah said to him, "Sen'tor, you can't get in thar' nohow.' "Why can't ah?" "'Cause you ain't mounted."

He says,

'He scratched his head awhile, and ah tell you them white folks is powerful thinkers. And he turned to me and says, "Ah tell you what you do. You get down on you' han's and knees and make b'lieve you are the mule and ah'll ride up to the Pearly Gate with you, and when St. Peter say, 'Is you afoot or is you mounted?' ah'll say 'mounted.' Then when he opens the Pearly Gate and says 'Come in,' we'll bof' go in together."

"So ah said again, "what powerful thinkers these white folks is." And ah got down on ma' han's and knees an' it war' powerful hard work for ma' old rheumatiky knees, an' it war terrible hot thar.