National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-01-25
JOLLY JOURNALISTS.
RECEPTION TO THE OHIO EDITORS,
Distinguished Gathering at Harini's Hall
Judge Shellabarger's Witty Welcome Speech
Remarks by Governor Foster, the
Buckeye Senator's, and Others.

I
decorated with flags of all nations, the pilaster
between the windows bearing small American
. flags draped over the national escutcheon. Owe
the front of the stage, which had been pre-
pared to seat about sixty persons, a larg
garrison flag was suspended, Topped up IL
the centre of the arch. In the rear of the stage
on the right-hand side, was suspended walnut
framed portrait of General Garfield and On the let
hand a steel engraving being full length portrai
of President Hayes. At halfpast eight o'clock tn
meeting was called to order by Judge Samue
Shellabarger, who then proceeded TO deliver tn
address of welcome, as follows:
JUDGE sHELLABARGER's ADDRESS.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE OHIO PRESS
Your fellow citizens here have assigned TO me the
agreeable Office of extending to you their cordla
welcome This, on their behalf do Having
done this, if we've to stop, would have made tht
best reception speech ever made. But as nobody
ever makes the best speech ever made, ana as
speech to the press ought to be so organized as tC
have all the modern Improvements" will nol
stop there.
One of the qualities of every well organized
speech of welcome is prefdee-like the salutatory
of a newborn newspaper-explaining why II was
made. therefore put preface in my speech, ex.
planning why we are glad to see YOU And need
hardly tell yop it is because so few from Ohio
ever get here. We few who happen to be here are
lonesome. Hence our joy at your coming This is
the end of the preface
A leading quality of every modern reception adj.
to inform the ResgSn or thing f6e
may be. My address must have that charming
quality.
And in now proceeding to apprise you of your
personal and your public virtues, and in paying
due tribute 10 them, can do SO i'll no other way SO
well as by directing your attention TO those quail
ties in which your profession, as Journalists re-
sembles my profession-the law And in selecting
the quality as to which We most resemble each
other and in which we are most pre-emlnent, and
which is, at the same time, the one which most OF
all resembles US to the gods, think am bound 10
set down first of all recognized and traditional
| love and practice of truth.
in favor of my profession, | will be pardOned for
saying, as in favor of yours, that the history OF
journalism is but monument to this, your chief
/ est excellence-a monument marked all over with
| inscriptions chronicling the great maxim
| ''SEwSPAPERs WON'T LIE
1t was in obedience to this popular and govern
mental conviction regarding you that for cen
fury they set over you the standardization for
other centuries the censor then for other cen
turtles the restraints of criminal codes-all aimed
the truth: and such is your disposition toward a
redundancy of truth-telling that even now, by the
thirty-ninth and ffty-frst of Third George
and the second and third of Victoria,
and other statutes of England, the rulers OF
| that realm SO recognize your inclination toward
this supreme virtue, and SO desire to make your
| acquaintance that you may not print any paper
which has not inscribed on it your name, place of
| abode, and where he lives who got you 10 do it;
and you may not start your newspaper I'LL you
dulge to excess your irTepressibe tendency not 10
tell a lie, and guaranteeing that you will send to
the Stamp Office" marked with your name, q
copy Of each issue of your iOurnal-thiS to the end
! that when you are chosen defendant in q cause
| based on the maxim of English law" The greater
| the truth the greater the libel Her Majesty may
| have your address,"
So noticeable is this prccliviy of your profession
| and mine, 10 indulge in great accuracy of MARIA
tive that only recently some one has gone so far
as to assert that professions ought TO have for
| their coats of arms that strange deyice-nOw be-
| come the American symbol of TRUTH mean the
| device ofa
"HATCHET AND A RAvIsHED CHERRY TREE"
and l em glad 10 add that the author of this sug-
gestOn has with great penetration, suggested that
the Ratchet" ought 10 be accorded 10 the law
| yers.
| Another of the excellencies we possess in COM
| mOnis that sweet virtue mOdestg. You have doubt
| less observed how unanimous the world is in low
ing modesty. II is, indeed beautiful, as beautiful
as the tmid peep OF dawn, or as the blush lighted
by the first kiss of love. We love mOdesty even in
| the flowers. No one likes the blaring, faTing,
| staring suniower, even though
at turns TO its god when he sets
The same look that il turned when he rose
But we, in child-days, hunted, and gathered, and
caressed the frail and Shrinking violet and followed
itinto utmost retreats into boundIess contguty
! of shade
We are the vioIets Of human soci ety-a flower
which retreats from observation, stays in of
nights, does not pry into peoples private matters
or keyboles where caucus is sitting, nor steals
| Chinese treaties or things from under
THE CLASSIC AND USsUsPECTING NOSE
of the Senator from Vermont. We are a modest
and in eminent degrees by our profession, is that
grand one-silence. Did you ever reflect, gentle
men, how awful, how sublime is the
picket lines the circles of the oumost spheres
and whose out-sentinels are the utmost stars and
everywhere. throughout the vast abyss, no sound,
but all vOiceeSs, pulseess, limitleSs eternal
hash! Silence is awful, and mates with greatness.
The Gods are SILENT oracles are silent, the sphynx
is silent ae e are o SILENT lent GeoPatred
| it for an interview the other day. owls are
silent and ,re are silent II is alleged that Tom
Carlisle got the idea of his celebrated epigram
which said Silence is the great want of the
nineteenth century, from the closing remark of
the Irish SchoOlmasters rebuke OF turbulent boy,
which closing remark said TO the stricken sufferer:
"BarnN, i hereafter want nothing from YOU but
silence, and mighty little of that"
So characteristic of your profession is this quail
ity of silence that, with strange and persistent
fitness, the whole world has for centuries adhered
to one word "ga2Zera--G the generic
name of ali the products of your professional
work. The fitness of that name" gaZzera AS
descriptive of your characteristic silence, will APP
pear when l translate it fer the benefit of the
country members" IL means - q magpie!'' In
deed it is safe say that but for the silence which
your profession and mine contributed to this age it
would be noisy one
But, gentlemen, do not expect me to disclose to-
you at sitting oil the virtues in which you are
pre-eminent. Time would fail me TO tell of
Gideon and of Barak and of Samson" L therefore
in which have spoken; and assume, for closing,
line of statement, quoted from others, wherein
the facts arc furnished by the imagination, the
logic is supplied by fancy, and tie conclusions re-
semble these two gossamers, out of which they
were woven.
So speaking to you 1 say, as Junius says: You.
ministers Of the press, ministers at holy affairs,
I" let it be impressed upon your minds let it be in
stilled into your children, that the liberty of the
press is the palladium OF all the civil, POLITICAL and
religious rights of Englshmen." say to you, in
substance, as that most rhetorical and inaccurate
of the English historians says. the event which
made newspapers possible in England outrank, in
dignity and in the benefcence of their result ALL
the achievements of England's best wars for Eng
liSh liberty.
Cause you are, like the lawyers, Virtuous; well
come you because the visits of OhiO's children to
this city are so like the angels-rare. But above
all 1 welcome you because your presence here
will furnish our Secretary Of State, before be goes
out, the spectacle which he has expressed an in
tense desire to see but was about to die without
the sight the sight of . OhiOS Reserve
OTHER BUCKEYE TALKERS
J. F. Mack, ofthe Sandusky Register, president of
the Editorial Association, replied to the address
of welcome. He said that If there was any one
thing that commended him to the Ohio editors more
than another it The fact that during the four
years Of his presidency of the Editorial Assoca-
zion speeches had been limited to a half minute,
and that the address of the chairman had practi-
cally left him nothing TO say that if there was
one thing in which Ohio editors excelled all man
kind it was modesty, and that he had so large
share of that quality that he would now return
thanks for the cordial welcome extended and leave
the field TO others.
Senator Thurman was then introduced. ard in
fveninute speech, in which, atter charging Judge
Shellahargerwith foTeStalling him in much that
he had mapped out 70 say regarding Ohio, he paid
a glowing tribute to his native State
Then followed speeches from George G. Wash
burn, esq, of Illyria Ohio, Judge Lawrence, and
Senator Pendleton.
After extending a kindly welcome TO the visitors.
Senator Pendletor, turning 10 Senator Thurman,
said II take comfort in the fact that our State
hot n tor yuh n 1IrCfF tn
tTious body he is soon to leave. take comfort
that we have general who marched from the
North TO the sea. take comfort in the thought
that we have an illuStriOus eX-PreSdent whose