The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-05-11
THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.
Wendell Phillips and the Phi Beta Kap-
 pa Society.

| JIlb JOuIldl dllI SOILiCA OL NlthLC Ol AARl II
 27th last, is the following paragraph;
 "There are many encouraging hap
 penings in the south in these days but
 none more encourag ging than what is go-
 ing on in South Carolina. A writer in
 the Worcester Spy is reminded by it of Wendell Phillips memorable oration | before the Phi Beta Kappa society at a
 Yale commencement. Two years be- fore the oration was delivered some
 member of that sosiety proposed that
 he be invited to deliver the oration the \ next year, but by a very decisive ma iority the proposition was voted down. During the ensuing twelve months a l tremendous change was wrought in public opinion by events in Kansas, and when the society met and the proposal was again made the society, by still | larger majority, voted to extend the in- vitation. MT. Phillips rose to speak be- fore the largest audience that ever list ened to a Phi Beta Kappa oration in New Haven. He folded his arms, | looked his audience into almost painful
 stiffness and calmly said: "The world moves. I repeat it. The world moves. After another pause he continued, and in few sentences he told how the march of events had so revolutionized their opinions that the same body of men that two years before had refused to listen to him had one year ago invi- ted him to come at that time and to speak to them of the principles involved in the great contest which was then in progress"
 This story of Wendell Phillips is with out substance of truth, l was present and heard Wendell Phillips when he de- livered the Phi Beta Kappa oration in New Haven, oh Wednesday evening,
 July go, 1857, in the old North church, now called the United church. The late
 Professor Dana presided, Francis M,
 Finch read poem, and MT. Phillips de- livered an oration, of which the an- nounced subject was: "The Republican
 Scholar of Necessity an Agtator" He
 did not fold his arms on rising; he did
 not stand thus in a silence that was
 painful; he did not utter the opening
 sentence attributed to him; he did not
 mention having been once rejected and
 afterwards chosen for the duty he was
 performing.
 The whole story Is so false to the char
 acter and style of MT. Phillips that any
 one who knew the man or has heard
 him speak sufficiently to know his man
 ner of oratory will be apt to reject 1t as
 improbable without investigation or
 testimony. I do not believe that he
 ever folded his arms when standing be-
 fore an audience. It is quite. certain
 that he could not have gloated vulgarly
 in public over triumph of so personal
 a nature as this narrator has repre-
 sented In breeding, Wendell Phillips
 was a patrician of the Boston patri-
 clans, the peer of Everett and Winthrop and Ticknor and Motley and Sumner.
 On the occasion referred to I sat In
 the south gallery near the pulpit end of the church. I remember distinctly the easy dignity of his stepping forward af- ter his introduction. He had his watch in his hand and laid 1t upon the cush- ion of the desk before him. There was no manuscript As soon as the respect ful applause which greeted him subsi- ded he began talking with quiet delibe- ration in low, distinct tones the like of which will never be heard from anoth- CT, without noticeable gesture and with a bearing rather deferential than tAu1tdilts WililC llG uttFAth ti NOiAipiilbtull of thanks for the honor conferred on him.
 My companion on this occasion was l D. H. Chamberlain, since Governor of | South Carolina, who already, a year be- 1 fore coming to college, knew by heart l the best passages of all English and 1 American orators When l read this | queer story of the Worcester Spy I | wrote to Governor Chamberlain, quo | ting my memory of MT. Phillips first | sentences and asking whether he re- | membered them. He replied that my | version was correct in substance, but | that he could give me the precise lam | guage if I cared for it. Subsequently | he sent me this, which I quote below, | saying: You may be sure that my re- | collection of Phillips opening is yer bally correct I repeated it once to him | and he pronounced it absolutely ac- curate."
 Tn the quietest possible manner and almost without gesture, in a moderate or low tone of voice, MT Phillips began as follows:
 "I thank you, gentlemen of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, for your courage | in inviting me to address you today me who am known only, if known at all, to most of you as the advocate of cause odious to a majority of the Amer lean people. laid my hand once on the low roof of a Swiss cottage; every 1rop of rain that falls on one side of 1t Is borne by the Rhine to carry the free of Holland and wash the free shores of mighty England Every drop hat falls on the other side goes, they -ell us, by the Danube to the Bosphorus, | 10 kiss the walls of the Turkish sera- glio or swell the laughing tides of de- graded Greece, At just such a critical, point you now stand, and always feel when I am permitted to address such as you that 1 have my land on the helm of the coming ship of 3tate."
 The only published report of the ad- lress that I have found, that in the New York Tribune of July 31, a compendius gives no support to the writer in the Worcester Spy and clear V supports Governor Chamberlain.
 With this leave the question of what fir. Phillips said; but the story teller of . he Worcester Spy is wrong also in his ccount of the circumstances which he