The evening Republican., 1902-06-26
.:R00SEVELTH0NOR
Harvard Bestows IL. D. on
the President.
SPEECH At COMMENCEMENT DINNER


Head Of the Nation Lavish In Praise
Of Faithfal OMcials, Especial-,+
y. ly Rect. Taft and
+ - Wood.
CAMBRIDGE. Mass, June 26.-Com-
mencement at Harvard university, also
an event which brings together dis
tinguished gathering, was of unusual
interest yesterday because of the pres
ence of the president of the United
States, Theodore Roosevelt, graduate
of Harvard, class of 80, who was to
receive the honorary degree OF LII. p,
from the university.
There We're other notable guests At
the commencement, including Eacreta.
ry of State John Hay and former Sec
retary Of the Navy John D. Long, ex-
governor Of Massachusetts.
At the Harvard commencement din
ner the president made noteworthy
speech in praise Of college men. Among
other things he said:
Before l say what had intended to
speak Of let me speak for all of you, !
am sure-let me speak for all Ameri-
cans today when say that we watch
with the deepest concern and sympa-
thy the sickbed of the English king
and that all Americans in rendering
their hearty sympathy to the people of
Great Britain now remember keenly
the outburst of genuine grief with
which all England last fall greeted the
calamity that befell US in the death Of
President Mckinley.
The president then spoke feelingly
of some well known Harvard men,
among them ex-Secretary Long, Sena-
tors Hoar and Lodge, and Secretary
of State John Hay, and continued as
follows:
Gentlemen, / want to speak Of three
other college graduates because of the
service they have done the public, a
graduate Of Hamilton college, Elihu
Root; graduate Of Yale, Governor
Taft, and a fellow Harvard man,
Leonard Wood four years ago went
to Cuba, has served there ever since,
has rendered services to that country
Of the kind if performed 5000 years
ago would have made him a hero
mixed up with the sun god in various
ways, a man who devoted his whole
life to these four years and who
thought of nothing else, did nothing
else, save to try to bring up the stand
ard of political and social life in that
island, to clean it physically and
morally, to make justice even and fair
in it, to found a school system that
should be akin to our own, to teach the
people after four centuries of misrule
that there were such things as govern
mental righteousness and honesty and
fair play for all men on their merits
as men. He did all that. He is man
of slender means. He did it on his
pay as an army officer and as governor
of the island. Sixty millions of dollars
passed through his hands, and he came
out having had to draw on his slender
capital in order that he might come out
even when he left the island.
"And Taft, Judge Taft, Governor
Taft, who has been the head of the
Philippine commission and who has
gone back there-Taft, the most bril-
liant graduate of his year at Yale, the
youngest Yale man upon whom that
institution ever conferred a degree Of
Ill. D., a man who, having won high
positions at the bar and then served
as solicitor general, with all his tastes
impelling him to judicial career and
was appointed to the United States
bench, was asked to give up the posi-
ton in order to 60 to the other side of
the world to take up an infinitely diff
cult an infinitely dangerous, problem
and to do his best to solve it. He has
done his best. He came back here the
other day.
"Iie said to me: Mr.. President, it
has always been my dream to be in the
supreme court, but if you should offer
me justiceship now and at the same
time congress should take off entirely
my salary as governor | should go
straight back to the Philippines never
theess, for those people need me and
expect me back and believe l won't de-
sert them He has gone back; gone
as strong friend among weaker
friends to help them upward along the
stony and dtiiceIt path of self govern
melt, to do his part and a great part
in making the American name II SYM
bol of honor and of good faith in the
Philippine Islands.
''And now Elihu Root, who, unlike
myself, Mr.. President Eliot, but like
most of you present, comes Of the old
New England stock, whose great
grandfather stood beside Leonard
Woods great-grandfather at Concord
Bridge-Elihu Root, who had worked
his way up from being poor and un-
known country boy in New York to a
position where in year or two he had
the leadership of the bar Of the great
city within his grasp, gave it up made
the very great Secuniary sacrifice i'm
piled in giving it Up and accepted the
position under President Mckinley of
secretary of war, a position which for
the last three years and at present
amounts to being not only the secreta-
~ for war, but the secretary for the
islands, the secretary for the colonies
at the same time; who has done the
most exhausting and most responsible