THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 16

Address by

Hon. JOHN BARTON PAYNE

(Secretary, Department of the Interior)

"The Threatened Invasion of Our National Parks"

Assisted by

HERBERT W. GLEASON

(WITH STEREOPTICON SLIDES)

Auditorium, 8 o'clock

GEORGE S. SMITH will preside.

This is the first visit to Boston which Secretary Payne has made since he became a member of the Cabinet, and his first appearance before the business men of this city. He is coming to us at considerable sacrifice of time from his official duties in Washington, because of the great importance of the subject he is to discuss, the threatened invasion of our National Parks and Monuments by private water power and irrigation interests. It is a vital topic, one which concerns us all, as it involves the principle of surrendering precious possessions held in trust for future generations.

An important part of the program will be a striking series of colored slides, shown by Mr. Herbert W. Gleason, an expert photographer and authority on the National Parks. Many of the pictures were made last summer for the purpose of showing the locations immediately involved in existing and pending legislation.

Dinner at 6 o'clock. Tickets at the office of the Civic Secretary.

Note. Beginning Monday, December 13, and continuing for four days, there will be a special exhibition of photographs and maps bearing on this topic, in the Art Gallery on the third floor.

Saturday Afternoon, December 18

Hon. MALCOLM E. NICHOLS

(Chairman, Rent and Housing Committee)

"THE HOUSING PROBLEM "

Luncheon, 1 o'clock

This is the first of a series of Saturday afternoon luncheon meetings at which local problems will be discussed by well-known Boston men. At this meeting Senator Nichols will present the work of the Mayor's Rent and Housing Committee, of which he is chairman, and discuss some of the problems involved. The luncheon will begin promptly at one o'clock, and following the talk by Senator Nichols there will be an opportunity for discussion. Those who are unable to attend the luncheon are welcome to come in for the talk and discussion.

Tickets at the office of the Civic Secretary.

Thursday Evening, December 23

Christmas Week

No Entertainment

Monday Evening, December 27 (Forum)

Professor D. D. VAUGHAN

"AMERICAN IDEALS "

Auditorium, 8 o'clock

A wide-awake, vigorous, two-fisted American, Professor Vaughan can look back on seven years as a newsboy in Chicago. He worked his way through school and college, and has done post-graduate work in sociology at the University of Chicago. Two years spent as Pastor in the parish back of the stockyards has given him extraordinary background for his present work as Professor of Social Service, Boston University.

The years spent living and working in the most congested districts of Chicago have added an invaluable practical experience to academic knowledge. His message is of gripping interest.

Dinner at 6 o'clock. Make reservations early.

Thursday Evening, December 30

STEPHEN LEACOCK

(Author, Humorist, Educator)

"FRENZIED FICTION"

Auditorium, 8 o'clock

WILLIAM C. CRAWFORD will preside.

Stephen Leacock, the noted humorist, has been called "the Canadian Mark Twain," and is ranked by literary critics with the foremost humorists and satirists of the day. There is a delightful vein of keenest irony in practically all his books. He talks in the same easy, humorous style in which he writes.

In private life he is a college professor, head of the department of economics and political science at McGill University, Canada's leading educational institution.

Dinner at 6 o'clock. Tickets at the office of the Civic Secretary.

FORUM DINNERS PROVING BIG SUCCESS

A most enthusiastic reception has been accorded the proposal made at the dinner preceding the opening Forum meeting, that Club members present their views on the subject of the evening's talk. This plan was tried out with great success at the second Forum dinner. Attendance was largely increased and fifteen to twenty men responded to the Chairman's call for three-minute speeches. The response at the third meeting was even more ready.

Not only has this given members an opportunity to express themselves, but it has indicated to the Forum speaker the particular points along which members were interested. Altogether the dinners have taken on new life, and as hesitation has passed away discussions have become more and more worth while, both to the three-minute man and to his listeners. Members are urged to take advantage of this opportunity to hear widely divergent, but always sane and interesting, discussions along the lines indicated by the subject of the meeting.

With the growth of these preliminary meetings it is found that reservations are not nearly approaching the total that sit down to the dinner. If care will be taken to inform the office of intention to be present, it will be of great assistance in making preparations.

ADDRESS BY HON. JAMES M. BECK

October 21, 1920

INTRODUCTION BY HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL

Mr. President, Gentlemen of the City Club, - I congratulate you upon the openmindedness of this wonderful club of seventy-five hundred members, the growth of which I have followed with great interest from the old building into your new palatial home, and I will not take your time with preliminary remarks.

I have the honor to introduce the orator of the evening. When the great war broke out, in 1914, the American public was in doubt with regard to the responsibility for that war. A distinguished jurist, statesman, and orator gave his attention to the examination of the evidence in the case, and he produced a work which had a prompt, a decisive effect upon the mind of multitudes of men. It is his characteristic, upon all occasions, to look for "the Evidence in the Case," and in addressing you, to-night, he will bring you a fund of knowledge derived not only from long study and careful examination, but from a recent visit to Europe where he has had excellent opportunities for observing the condition of Europe.

Í need not dwell upon the qualities of the speaker of the evening. He is too well known to you for that. I have the honor of presenting to you the Hon. James M. Beck, of New York. [Applause, the members rising.]

HON. JAMES M. BECK

Dr. Hill, and Gentlemen of the City Club, Let me first express my appreciation of the gracious introduction with which Dr. Hill has been good enough to commend me to the forbearance of the audience, and also for the great compliment which the City Club has done me, in inviting me in this most critical election to discuss the issues of the campaign from the Republican standpoint.

I shall address myself to-night almost wholly to that which seems to be the burning issue in the minds of most men, the League of Nations, with-following, perhaps, a pernicious example - a few personalities. [Laughter and applause.] In so doing I would not be understood by the most subtle implication to suggest to this audience that the League is either the only issue in this campaign, or even the greatest issue. On the contrary, while it has consumed the larger part of our thoughts in this campaign, and because it is a question about which men of equal patriotism and candor may reasonably differ, yet in my judgment there are far greater questions to which it will be impossible for me to make any allusion. Preliminarily, I cannot understand the sentiments of that body of Americans, including an infinitesimal fragment of the Republican party, who are more concerned with the participation of the United States in the constitution of a world state than they are in the preservation of their own Constitution. [Applause.]

Let me also premise three things: first, that the League of Nations ought never to have been made the subject of a popular referendum. It

is not adapted to any such referendum; and while I have no question as to the ultimate verdict of the American people, on the 2d of November, and have no question as to its moral significance with reference to that question, yet I freely recognize that the issues of this campaign are so complex and overlapping that no true referendum can be had upon this great question, as indeed under the genius of our government no referendum ought to be had, because most wisely the founders of the Republic left this great question of our foreign relations primarily to the President, and secondly and ultimately and definitely to the Senate of the United States. [Applause.]

In the second place, I premise that the League of Nations is infinitely above party politics, and that American statesman, whoever he may be, who has dragged it into party politics has a very heavy responsibility not only to this, but to all future generations. And, lastly, I premise that the question of a League of Nations can have nothing to do and cannot be justly affected by any personalities with reference to the merits or demerits of its proponents or opponents.

You may ask me this, Why, having made the third and last premise, I shall notice the attacks that have been made in this state upon the distinguished senior Senator from the great state of Massachusetts, and to that I answer that, while Senator Lodge's merits or demerits can have no just place in the determination of the value of the League, yet, when he is subjected to the most virulent abuse, of which I have any knowledge in any recent political controversy, it is only decent justice to Senator Lodge that some one, especially in the vicinage where he is so well and favorably known, should say that which can be so justly said in his defense [applause].

What is the nature of the indictment against Senator Lodge? So far as Mr. Cox is concerned, it is that he is the author of the most terrible conspiracy in the history of mankind," and that he is, to quote the official record of his speech, "the arch-conspirator in the greatest conspiracy against humanity" in all history, and, to quote the amplification of it, that he is "the basest conspirator in the history of humanity of the whole world" [laughter]. I don't wonder, with such an attack, that the temperature in Boston is abnormal for October [laughter and applause], for even hot air can affect a thermometer. But he went further, and charged that, wherever he had gone throughout the United States, the name of Senator Lodge, which he evidently had rolled as a sweet morsel under his tongue, had invariably been greeted with jeers and shouts of contempt. I will treat the second charge first, and answering it I will only say that the testimony would be more convincing with respect to Senator Lodge's alleged unpopularity in this country if it had come from one whose veracity had not suffered in this campaign so serious an impairment. [Applause.] Indeed, recalling the somewhat reckless character of Mr. Cox as revealed in this campaign, perhaps it is more accurate to say that he is quite honest in his description but not accurate in his application; that the shouts and jeers might have been directed to him when he attacked Senator Lodge, and not to Senator Lodge at all. [Applause.]