Cairo Railway would be built.
Every improvement that is put upon the real estate is the result of an
idea in somebody’s head. The skyscraper is another idea; the railroad is
another; the telephone and all those things are merely symbols which
represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of an idea that
did not exist before.
So if, as that gentleman said, a book does consist solely of ideas, that
is the best argument in the world that it is property, and should not be
under any limitation at all. We don’t ask for that. Fifty years from
now we shall ask for it.
I hope the bill will pass without any deleterious amendments. I do seem
to be extraordinarily interested in a whole lot of arts and things that I
have got nothing to do with. It is a part of my generous, liberal
nature; I can’t help it. I feel the same sort of charity to everybody
that was manifested by a gentleman who arrived at home at two o’clock in
the morning from the club and was feeling so perfectly satisfied with
life, so happy, and so comfortable, and there was his house weaving,
weaving, weaving around. He watched his chance, and by and by when the
steps got in his neighborhood he made a jump and climbed up and got on
the portico.
And the house went on weaving and weaving and weaving, but he watched the
door, and when it came around his way he plunged through it. He got to
the stairs, and when he went up on all fours the house was so unsteady
that he could hardly make his way, but at last he got to the top and
raised his foot and put it on the top step. But only the toe hitched on
the step, and he rolled down and fetched up on the bottom step, with his
arm around the newel-post, and he said:
“God pity the poor sailors out at sea on a night like this.”
IN AID OF THE BLIND
ADDRESS AT A PUBLIC MEETING OF THE NEW YORK ASSOCIATION FOR
PROMOTING THE INTERESTS OF THE BLIND AT THE WALDORF ASTORIA,
MARCH 29, 1906
If you detect any awkwardness in my movements and infelicities in my
conduct I will offer the explanation that I never presided at a meeting
of any kind before in my life, and that I do find it out of my line.
I supposed I could do anything anybody else could, but I recognize that
experience helps, and I do feel the lack of that experience. I don’t
feel as graceful and easy as I ought to be in order to impress an
audience. I shall not pretend that I know how to umpire a meeting like
this, and I shall just take the humble place of the Essex band.
There was a great gathering in a small New England town, about twenty-
five years ago. I remember that circumstance because there was something
that happened at that time. It was a great occasion. They gathered in
the militia and orators and everybody from all the towns around. It was
an extraordinary occasion.
The little local paper threw itself into ecstasies of admiration and
tried to do itself proud from beginning to end. It praised the orators,
the militia, and all the bands that came from everywhere, and all this in
honest country newspaper detail, but the writer ran out of adjectives
toward the end. Having exhausted his whole magazine of praise and
glorification, he found he still had one band left over. He had to say
something about it, and he said: “The Essex band done the best it could.”
I am an Essex band on this occasion, and I am going to get through as
well as inexperience and good intentions will enable me. I have got all
the documents here necessary to instruct you in the objects and
intentions of this meeting and also of the association which has called
the meeting. But they are too voluminous. I could not pack those
statistics into my head, and I had to give it up. I shall have to just