Putnam patriot., 1919-07-11

with very great interest and pleasure
The brief history of the school. writ
ten by him in his early manhood, was
most interesting. was especially
impressed with the school publica-
ton, 1.-The Cleaner" successive num-
bers of which, back to 1896 with few
exceptions. being included in the list.
Having been in my COLLECT days one
of the editors of our college paper
1.-THE Amherst Student" l am wont
to take a special interest in such pub
LEGATIONS. | wish to say that THE
Cleaner" is and has been one of the
very best school publications which
has come to my notice, and to con-
graduate the students of the acade-
my, past and present, upon it. To
my mind no other publication Of that
sort has quite so successfully featur-
ed letters from alumnae and alumni
giving "reminiscences of student days.
In reading the Cleaner noticed that
most of the graduating addresses have
been made by distinguished clergy
men, and that, as is the custom and
perhaps the special privilege of those
gentlemen, their addresses have dealt
for the most part with the metaphysi-
cal. the psychological and the philo-
sophie. in short with the ideal rather
than the actual.
1t would, no Doubt unfortunately,
be utterly impossible for me to make
an address along those lines. 1t has
been my hard duty through life to
deal with the actual. The functions of
the lawyer, and more especially of the
Judge are to deal with the hard reali-
ties of life,-to interpret and apply
to the facts the law as it is, not to
make either the law or the facts. The
experience of the past five years has
taught the lesson of the paramount
importance of fact as against theory.
Five years ago the belief, at least here
in America. was wellnigh universal
that there could not be another war
between any two or more great ma
tions; that the moral sense of civiliza-
ton, as then lately expressed in the
Hague Convention, would cause all
uch to settle their differences through
some court of arbitration; but the
war came and proved to be the most
sanguinary and inhumane within re-
corded history. Now, thanks largely
or at least very substantially to the
valor and the persistence of the Amer
lean soldier. the war has ended in an
undoubted victory for the right.
The fact of war has passed into his
tory, but the fact of reconstruction
after the war is still in the making
and doing. To my mind the period
of that is no less perilous than the
period of the war itself The older of
as here present have lived through the
period of reconstruction in this coun-
try after one, mighty war, the Civil;
and we at least know it's difficulties
and dangers. OF late years we even
of the North have been by the logic
of events compelled to realize that
that reconstruction, as conducted by
our fathers,-or more appropriately
to most here present by our grand
fathers,-was a monumental failure.
Such already is the verdict of i'm
partial history, even when written by
northern historians, such as Rhodes.
The fault of it, as the results have de-
monstrated, lay in the attempted dis
franchisement of the educated, ex-
perienced, propertied and competent
part of the population in the recon-
structed States, and the immediate
Acknowledgement of the ignorant, in
experienced, impecunious and incom-
petent part. The experiment of gov
eminent by ignorance, inexperience
and impecuniosity failed, as doubtless
it was bound to fail and yet our .peo-
pie hereabouts, the best brains and
conscience of New England, fifty
years ago believed implicitly in that
policy of reconstruction. l myself
in the fall of 1868, at the mighty mass
meeting held upon this common un-
der the auspices of the late Henry C.
Bowen, heard twenty thousand people
applaud to the echo that policy, then
! known as the Reconstruction Policy
/ of Congress" as it was here expound-
ed by Senator Henry Wilson and the
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and others
of the great men of that generation.
Those people here then cheered that
policy like mad, and they so cheered
it because they were mad clean
through and through. The mass Of
them then really, believed that some
of the leading .Confederates, especial
Ily jefferson Davis, had been in con-
spiracy to produce the assassination
of Lincoln, belief which subsequent
investigations and revelations have
demonstrated to have been utterly
mistaken if not utterly unfounded.
1 That experience Of our nation
should teach US at least to proceed
with the present work of reconstruc-
ton slowly, dispassionately, in.elli-
gently humanely and reasonably, to
the end that when it has been done it
will have been well done, so that il
will last What with industrial IN
rest,-strikes and threats of strikes,
llockouts and threats of lockouts.-
+ extreme socialism, drastic and UMPIRE
cedented taxation, high cost of liy-
ling and nevertheless great lavishness
4 of expenditure in every direction,
both public and private, our country
is today as apprehend, in a far more
disorganized condition than it was
even at the close of the Civil War.
Then the disorganization was confin-
ed to part and the smaller part Of
! of the country; now it is general. II
took twelve years then to accomplish
! Immediately the work of reconstruc-
4 ton, and broadly perhaps the task has
not yet been completed
The qualities needed for the con-
sideration and solution of the prob
lens of present day reconstruction
ara rreeminentlv those which the