other things to do, and we must think of something else. Well, we have
tried a President four years, criticised him and found fault with him the
whole time, and turned around a day or two ago with votes enough to spare
to elect another. O consistency! consistency! thy name–I don’t know
what thy name is–Thompson will do–any name will do–but you see there
is the fact, there is the consistency. Then we have tried for governor
an illustrious Rough Rider, and we liked him so much in that great office
that now we have made him Vice-President–not in order that that office
shall give him distinction, but that he may confer distinction upon that
office. And it’s needed, too–it’s needed. And now, for a while anyway,
we shall not be stammering and embarrassed when a stranger asks us, “What
is the name of the Vice-President?” This one is known; this one is
pretty well known, pretty widely known, and in some quarters favorably.
I am not accustomed to dealing in these fulsome compliments, and I am
probably overdoing it a little; but–well, my old affectionate admiration
for Governor Roosevelt has probably betrayed me into the complimentary
excess; but I know him, and you know him; and if you give him rope
enough–I mean if–oh yes, he will justify that compliment; leave it just
as it is. And now we have put in his place Mr. Odell, another Rough
Rider, I suppose; all the fat things go to that profession now. Why, I
could have been a Rough Rider myself if I had known that this political
Klondike was going to open up, and I would have been a Rough Rider if I
could have gone to war on an automobile but not on a horse! No, I know
the horse too well; I have known the horse in war and in peace, and there
is no place where a horse is comfortable. The horse has too many
caprices, and he is too much given to initiative. He invents too many
new ideas. No, I don’t want anything to do with a horse.
And then we have taken Chauncey Depew out of a useful and active life and
made him a Senator–embalmed him, corked him up. And I am not grieving.
That man has said many a true thing about me in his time, and I always
said something would happen to him. Look at that [pointing to Mr. Depew]
gilded mummy! He has made my life a sorrow to me at many a banquet on
both sides of the ocean, and now he has got it. Perish the hand that
pulls that cork!
All these things have happened, all these things have come to pass, while
I have been away, and it just shows how little a Mugwump can be missed in
a cold, unfeeling world, even when he is the last one that is left–
a GRAND OLD PARTY all by himself. And there is another thing that has
happened, perhaps the most imposing event of them all: the institution
called the Daughters of the–Crown–the Daughters of the Royal Crown–has
established itself and gone into business. Now, there’s an American idea
for you; there’s an idea born of God knows what kind of specialized
insanity, but not softening of the brain–you cannot soften a thing that
doesn’t exist–the Daughters of the Royal Crown! Nobody eligible but
American descendants of Charles II. Dear me, how the fancy product of
that old harem still holds out!
Well, I am truly glad to foregather with you again, and partake of the
bread and salt of this hospitable house once more. Seven years ago, when
I was your guest here, when I was old and despondent, you gave me the
grip and the word that lift a man up and make him glad to be alive; and
now I come back from my exile young again, fresh and alive, and ready to
begin life once more, and your welcome puts the finishing touch upon my
restored youth and makes it real to me, and not a gracious dream that
must vanish with the morning. I thank you.
AN UNDELIVERED SPEECH
The steamship St. Paul was to have been launched from Cramp’s