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About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (July 12, 1898)
VF AP AO MNT = Ween LY THE PROFOS. ED NEW MUSEUM BUILDING FOR YALE + : , yuk In this sketch of the building now needed is the large central portion. @) entire Museum, the present wing (corner of Elm and High streets) is seen on the right, and the main The wing on the left, which will be similar to the present one, may not be required for several years. It will stand on the corner of High and Library streets. Patriotic men have devised agencies for this work, most noted of which is the movement called Civil Service Reform, the literal and’ close copy of.college methods in selecting and promoting public servants. Its purpose is of the best; its effects, within a limited range, invaluable. But it is only a fragment, an incident, of the needed reform, and must depend for efficiency upon a pro- found change in the convictions and sentiments of the people. What is es- sential is to extend the Yale spirit far and wide, till an irresistible and uni- versal public opinion shall seek ever to recognize wisdom and strength, and call them to the front, regardless of bosses, catuctises, political conspiracies and party machinery; which shall note the gift of a public trust for any cause but supreme fitness as treason to the state. THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE WAR. We have been reminded from the platform to-day that a national crisis is upon us. The present war, whatever else it brings, is sure most seriously to impress and modify our character as a people. Times of vast struggle and passion are always times of rapid change; and the change deeply wrought in the national mind and heart is often far more momentous than __ shifted boundary lines or shaken thrones. To-day the ice-fields which have long crusted the ocean of American life are shivered, and its depths feel a new freedom to burst upwards towards the sky. May there not be here the open- ing for the reform we desire? In just such times it is that the demand for the best leadership is heightened to inten- sity. However in stagnant days of routine the cunning and the frail might mock the ways of statesmen, it is now the hour of imperative need for the wise and the strong. This-war seemed to many of us to be begun hastily, per- haps needlessly; an appeal to force and barbarism, without having wholly ex- hausted the resources of statesmanship and civilization. But if it results in shattering the tyranny of bosses, in driving petty politicians from the*en- trenchments of statesmanship, in shat- tering the fetters which party mani- pulation has fastened upon wisdom and strength, and in filling the nation’s inner life with the Yale spirit, of worth’to the front and the banner in manhood’s hands, it will yet prove a_ glorious epoch in our history. A STORY OF STANTON. Let wisdom and strength have op- portunity always! How wonderful the call of war for the strong man armed! Before this demand, all littlenesses, even those resting on reason and con- science, must hide. I am tempted to il- lustrate this by an experience of my own thirty-four years ago which, for obvious reasons, I kept to myself most of that time. In 1864, Mr. Stanton, then Sec- retary of War, issued an order which seemed to many thoughtful citizens an injury to our cause and a gross in- justice to one patriotic soldier. They asked me to present their remonstrance and request its revocation. The Sec- retary refused to listen to me. I went to Mr. Lincoln. He attended closely to every consideration, seemed much im- pressed by the thought that injustice was threatened, and referred me back to Mr. Stanton, with a written order that the Secretary of War should hear Mr. Lewis. With this in hand, I made my way, not easily, through the guards of the War Department, and was met by Mr. Stanton at the door of his inner room. “What! you here again? I will hear no more from you:’ he cried. I respectfully presented the President’s order, when he took a firm stand with folded arms and a defiant air, and quietly said: “1 will hear what you have to say.” As briefly and pointedly as I could, I presented the case, but, ob- serving his expression of inflexibility and growing irritation, had the misfor- tune to close by remarking that ‘“‘the people of the United States will not tamely submit to arbitrary acts of in- justice.” Mr. Stanton loudly demanded: “Is that all?” and as I nodded assent, swung his right arm high in air, advancing to me, and with an intensity of passion in feature and voice such as I never witnessed elsewhere, broke out: “God damn the people of the United States! If they would let me alone, I could carry this war to a successful close. But their perpetual meddling imperils the cause. I will not revoke the order. You may go.” Shocked and grieved I returned to the President and made my report. Mr. Lincoln reviewed ‘the case at some length, agreeing with me that the order in question was unjust and impolitic. “But,” he said, “I have no choice but to let it stand, or to lose my Secretary at War. Do you know, Mr. Lewis, where I can replace him?’ This was final, and from that day till now, there has grown upon me, as upon the world, the conviction that the strength of Stanton was what the country needed in that hour, and that the wisdom of Lincoln recognized and sustained it. Now we are again at war, and strength like Stanton’s and wisdom like Lincoln’s are wanted at the _ head. Minor injustices and errors must at such times be patiently borne, but the highest wisdom and strength in the great historic outlines of policy and achievement are the hope of the Repub- lic. Among the laureled brows on the stage before me, we delight to see that of our minister to Spain; and I take this occasion to say, in view of all his memorable achievements and honored life, that the brightest page of his fame is that which records his wise and strong efforts to preserve the peace of the nation and of the world. Such a partial failure is worth in permanent glory a thousand less noble successes. But our way to peace now lies through the fierce and bloody fields of war, and we can but join in the aspira- tion which sums up the spirit of his labors, the longings of all patriots, and the larger patriotism of philanthrophy: “© when shall all men’s good Be each man’s aim: and universal Peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Targnen all the circle of the Golden ear!” Prof. Charles F. Johnson of Trinity, Yale ’55, who received his degree of Doctor of Laws from Yale that morn- ing, said that Trinity would recognize in the honor which had been shown him, the good will of the Corporation at Yale toward that institution. Prof. Johnson named ubiquity and common- sense as the two dominant traits of Yale character. Rev. Dr. Henry S. Barnum, who re- ceived his doctorate that morning, briefly acknowledged the honor which had been done him. He said his friends sometimes asked him why he had buried himself in his Turkish mission work. He did not think that the phrase de- scribed his stations, which had been very pleasant ones, but he said that it might be that a man should bury him- self, as it would seem to his contem- poraries, in order to make his services most effective. Please hurry to this office every scrap of war news about Yale men which comes your way. Put m every detail you can. Please send this news as fast as 1t comes to you. It is especially necessary to get tt promptly. Rev. David Brainard Perry, President of Doane College, Nebraska, Yale 63, expressed his gratification that the only thing which did not change in all the development of Yale was the simple, devout, manly recognition of the God of our fathers. : President Dwight then said that Judge Henry E. Howland had finally succeeded in winning the election to the vacancy in the Corporation caused by the expiration of his own term of office. This he had accomplished by ordering the competition in a peculiarly happy way. Out of a total of 1425 votes he received 1395. The President, after chaffing the Judge at some length on this line, and expressing* his warm personal attachment for him, introduced him to an enthusiastic audience. Judge Howland responded somewhat as fol- lows: Judge Howland’s Response. I once heard a man say that he didn’t mind a man blowing his own horn, but it was the tune he always selected that made him tired. With this remark in mind, I will only say that for this signal and well-deserved mark of confidence and regard of the alumni of this institution, I am pro- foundly grateful. If it is true, as some reformers assert, that the office should seek the man and not the man the office, that man reflects credit upon his training, and as a poli- tician is not to be despised, who can so engineer a canvass that when the office starts out to hunt for a man, he is the only one in the way for it to strike. But it doesn’t speak well for the dig- nity of the office or the ambitions of the sons of Yale who should aspire to it, that one man should run over the course without handicap, restriction, or contest. A little city girl who was visiting her country cousins came down to breakfast one morning and saw honey upon the table. With the tact and courtesy of a well-bred little lady who wished to call attention to what might be pleasing to her host, she remarked smiling and complacently, “Ah! I see
