The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-12-23
MANY THEMES BY MANY MEN
DISCUSSED AZ THE NEW ENGLAND
SOCIETY BANQUET.

Herbert General Miles and Others.
New York, Dec. 22.-The New Eng
land soceity celebrated the ninety first
anniversary of its origin and two hun
dred and seventy-sixth of the landing
of the pilgrims by a dinner tonight at
the Waldorf
The dinner was held in the new ball
room of the hotel which was elabor-
ately decorated for the occasion. Ran
ners on which were inscribed IN letters
of gold the names of the New England
states We're hung all around tha BAN
quet hall. There was wealth Of
choice flowers at the various tables
and wreaths of evergreen were every
where to be seen.
In the absence of Charles c. Beaman,
the president of the New England So
ciety, who has gone out of town for
the holidays, ex-Judge Henry e. How
land, the first vice president, presided
at the dinner.
The following is the list of toasts and
the names of gentlemen who responded
to them:
"Forefathers' Day" E. j. Phelps, ex-
minister to England; Our Debt to the
Pilgrim Fathers" the Rev. DR.. Minot
J. Savage; "Some New Englanders in
Georgia." Colonel Richard Malcolm
Johnston of Baltimore; New England
Literature Hamilton w. Mabie; THE
Results of Puritan Influence" General
Horace Porter; The Navy" Hilary A.
Herbert, secretary of the navy; The
Army" General Nelson A. Miles; "The
Civic Compact and the Church Cove
rant of the Pilgrim" Nathan Lord,
president of the Pilgrim society of
Plymouth THE City of New York,
Mayor Strong; "Our Sister Societies."
j. Kennedy Todd.
Covers were laid for five hundred.
Among those present besides those
mentioned above We're Horace Russell,
Stewart L. Woodford, Elihu Root, j.
Perpont Morgan, General Thomas H.
Sugor, Hon. j. Sterling Morton, Hon.
Adlai f. Stevenson, Commodore Mont
gomery, Hon. Charles A. Dana, Cor
nelius N. Bliss, C. P. Huntington, Ar
thur f. Bowers and Ex-Governor Ros-
well p Flower.
Secretary Herbert said that If the
first blood of the revolution was shed
on New England soil so also did New
Englanders shed the first blood at sea,
when volunteers manned sloop and
after a bloody struggle captured an
armed English schooner lying off
Machias, Me. New England furnished
large proportion of the sailors and
officers of the efficient little American
navy during the revolutionary war.
Mr.. Herbert referred with pride to the
achievements of the navy during the
war of 1872, and then said:
our new navy was begotten in the
throes of the civil war. The famous
battle between the Merrimac and the
Monitor put the ship yards of Europe
to work on new designs and modern
navies resulted Other nations had
made wonderful strides when, twelve
years ago, we began to reconstruct our
navy and now we have in commission
forty-two ships with an aggregate of
1877 900 tons, all, with insignificant ex-
ceptions, modern vessels, and ship for'
ship and gun for gun we may proudly
challenge comparison with the world.
II trust that the program begun
dozen years ago is to be carried on un-
til we shall have a navy worthy in the
number of it's ships as it is in the char
acter of those we already possess of the
great people it represents"
General Miles, in his speech, said:
Whatever our army is, it springs from
the fireside and the families of our
people, No man can be a perfect SOL
dier without being first good citizen.
He must be prompted by the loftiest
purposes to defend his life, the well
fare of his people and the interests of
his government. Our army is a body
of men who are brave enough to meet,
in the defence of their government, the
destructive engines of war now used
by every civilized nation, who are pa
triotic enough to risk their lives in the
defence of their country's flag, the well
fare of their people and The mainte-
nance of the institutions we inherited
from our fathers.
Our army is one grand school of
patriotism, where the best thought, the
best principles, the best purposes, of
our young men find a congenial at
mosphere and where they are glad and
proud to wear their countrys uniform,
hold aloft it's flag and serve its pur-
poses, and when they, as sometimes
they do, return to civil life, the in
tegrity and patriotism prompted in the
service render them valuable citizens
and an ornament to any community"
E,x-Minister Phelps, in the course of
is remarks, in part said:
MANY voices, beside ours are talk
ing tonight about New England be-
tween the Atlantic and Pacific seas,
and this annual commemoration, SO
far from losing it's attractions as the
years go on, constantly gains. From
generation to generation, from century
the memory of those plain, simple, earn
est God-fearing, courageous men, grows
brighter and brighter and they come
out more and more brilliantly among
the stateliest figures in American his
tory
THE Pilgrims live in their work, in
the institutions and traditions of New
England, in the principles and spir-
it that we inherited from them.
The secret of the work they wrought
lay in the patriotism of those men; a
patriotism that not only forgot self,
but sacrificed self for the public good.
There never was such an occasion, in
my Judgment since the landing of
Plymouth Rock in the history of this
country, that was more opportune than
the present moment for recalling that