EXPECTATION.

BEFORE MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION, MARCH 13, 1906.

GENTLEMEN,- Your toastmaster has told you what the people expect of their elected magistrates. To all that he has said I subscribe most devoutly. The citizens of Boston have chosen me to serve them and I feel bound in honor to labor strenuously and scrupulously for their interests. This, their expectation, is my graven purpose and rooted resolve.

In carrying out that resolve no class of the community can be of more assistance than you, the manufacturers and master mechanics. Among the most vivid recollections of my youth is my annual or, at least, periodic visit to the exhibitions held in this building. Looking back upon them now, I realize more than ever their value as a school for the young, in kindling their ambition and stimulating an interest in applied mechanics and practical invention. They made the useful arts as fascinating as the Arabian Nights' entertainments and revealed the wonderland of progress and experiment that envelopes the plain world of everyday industry. They taught, also, by the silent sermon of the happy mechanic tending his machine a high respect for work. Any live boy, able to appreciate his own box of Christmas tools, could see that men who made things with their hands held an honorable position in society and, if well treated by their employers, were generally happy in their labors. Certainly there is no better model to hold before the eyes of average boyhood than the skilled artisan, ingenious, versatile and productive, and as a rule a good citizen and sterling patriot.

I am here to assure you that Boston understands the important share such men have had in developing and

upholding her prosperity. Our wealth is not in forests, farms or mines, for we have few of these within the city limits. It is in the things we make, sell or ship by land and sea. If you set out a wharf, a railroad station, a store and a mill you will have laid the four cornerstones of our industrial prosperity. Your association represents the application of brains to raw material, so that something design, quality, texture or what not is added to it, its substance is refined in some one of a million ways and its value multiplied many times. A rough block of spruce wood becomes a ream of tinted stationery. A ton of pig iron from Pittsburgh goes back transformed into watch springs, needles or steel pens. These magic processes are the miracles of modern science, and the men who discover or apply them bring wealth and credit to the community in which they live. Boston has never lacked such men and never failed to appreciate their worth.

Still, looking over the census of 1900 the other day, I found some evidence which made me think there might be room for greater activity even in manufactures and the mechanic arts in Boston. The capital invested in manufactures in this city was given as $143,000,000, while that invested in St. Louis was $162,000,000. In certain lines of manufacture - for example, in musical instruments and in rubber goods we far surpassed our sister city of nearly equal population, having about $7,000,000 invested in those industries, while St. Louis has almost nothing. But I could not understand why St. Louis should have $2,000,000 invested in the manufacture of chemicals, while Boston has only $132,000, or why she should have $1,000,000 in leather manufactures, while Boston in the heart of the leather district has only $104,000. These comparisons and others which might be made suggest that the hour is ripe for a careful scrutiny of our commercial methods and our educational system.

Personally I expect, to return once more to my cue word, that our greatest future development in addi

tion to our commercial expansion will be in those fields in which the fine arts lend grace and charm to objects of practical utility. I look to see Boston famous for her fabrics, jewelry, bronzes, bookmaking, scientific apparatus, artistic pottery and woodwork, and in other fields that call for preeminent taste and skill. The culture and ingenuity of our people ought to find expression in these forms, and by such development we can easily meet the pressure of competition and maintain our traditional leadership.

It is you, gentlemen, or your colleagues and successors who will realize this expectation of mine. For, after all, my forecast would be an idle dream were it not for the broad foundation you have laid and the spirit you have kept alive for more than a hundred years. I expect, when my hopes are consummated, to see this building, ample as it seems to our present-day imaginations, far outgrown and your membership list swollen. so as to tax the industry of your capable secretary and a large corps of assistants. In a word, I prophesy and wish for you all the pleasant embarrassments that accompany rapid expansion and a success beyond expectations. I am willing to accept the vigor of this association so characteristic and representative of the genius of the New England people as a fair measure of the prosperity of Boston.

PUBLIC SPIRIT.

BEFORE COMMITTEE ON METROPOLITAN AFFAIRS, MARCH 21, 1906.

I trust that the ladies and gentlemen who are opposed to this legislation will show a proper public spirit in connection with this enterprise. I regret to say that I think it has not been shown in the past. Every attempt that has been made to assess damages for betterments along Beacon street, whether it has been in the nature of a sewer assessment or for other purposes, has met with opposition from the Beacon street residents. I do not think that the action of these wealthy, influential and highly educated people has been such as to set a good example to the community. The period of unrest that is manifest in every part of the country is the result of rapacity shown up in court and in legislative proceedings of the wealthy men of the country. It is the persons who have large wealth, education and good circumstances who ought to lead the way and show a proper public spirit. This has not been the case with the Beacon street residents. They have shown a desire in every possible way to escape legitimate taxes and are willing to get all the advantages of the expenditure of large sums of money from the public treasury without making any return whatever. These men and women know that this is not sound ethics. It is graft in its most insidious form. Actions of this kind tend more to the weakening of our public spirit than complete and barefaced thieving. I hope, therefore, gentlemen of the committee, that this matter will be considered with a view to the welfare of the one million two hundred thousand people of the metropolitan district who will be compelled to pay for the improvement which is going to directly benefit two hundred residents of Beacon street. I trust that it will be considered in the larger sense of the welfare of the entire metropolitan district rather than that of a few.

BOSTON'S CHINESE TRADE.

WELCOME TO CHINESE EMISSARIES, APRIL 20, 1906.

MR. CHAIRMAN,- If my recollections of early studies in geography are correct, a shaft sunk through the earth directly under my feet would come out somewhere west of Pekin, in the province governed by our distinguished guest, Commissioner Tai Hung Chi. In other words, the envoys of the Empress of China could scarcely travel farther away from their native land than they are at this moment. Half the circumference of the globe separates them from the kingdom of rice, friends, and bamboo forests, of tea gardens and teeming rivers, which they left a few weeks ago. Whether their course, in leaving us, takes them to the east or to the west, either way they will be headed for home.

Yet, distant as this City of Boston is from China, more than a hundred years ago its merchants and sailors had found a path across the seas to the ancient empire of the East. One of the most romantic episodes in our history was the creation of the Chinese trade, which strengthened the foundations of our commercial prosperity and bred a race of "gentlemen adventurers" of whose enterprise and citizenship their descendants are justly proud.

It was in 1790 that the Boston ship "Columbia" set sail for Cape Horn, visited the Oregon shore on her way to Canton, then the only open port of China, and returned to Boston by way of the Cape of Good Hope, having been the first American vessel to circumnavigate the earth. It was a three years' voyage, in a little wooden vessel, with mere boys as navigators, through seas infested with pirates and hostile natives, yet, on the whole, as good a course of study and discipline, as