at he recognizes that this is a country of laws
and not men, that it is his duty as an honest citizen to uphold the
laws, to strive for honesty, to strive for a decent administration, and
to do all that in him lies, by incessant, patient work in our
government, municipal or national, to bring about the day when it shall
be taken as a matter of course that every public official is to execute
a law honestly, and that no capacity in a public officer shall atone if
he is personally dishonest.

THE ADOPTED CITIZEN

Speech of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the 115th annual banquet of the
Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, May 8, 1883.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND GUESTS:--I am
very much obliged to your president for calling upon me first, because
the agony will soon be over and I shall enjoy the misery of the rest of
you.

The first part of this toast--The United States--would be a voluminous
one to respond to on a single occasion. Bancroft commenced to publish
his notes on the History of the United States, starting even before
President Lane established this Chamber, which I think was something
over one hundred years ago. Bancroft, I say, commenced earlier, and I am
not prepared to dispute his word if he should say that he had kept an
accurate journal from the time he commenced to write about the country
to the present, because there has been no period of time when I have
been alive that I have not heard of Bancroft, and I should be equally
credulous if President Lane should tell me that he was here at the
founding of this Institution. But instead of bringing those volumes of
Bancroft's here, and reading them to you on this occasion, I will let
the reporters publish them as the prelude to what I am going to say.

I think Bancroft has finished up to a little after the time that
President Lane established this Chamber of Commerce, and I will let you
take the records of what he (Lane) has written and what he has said in
their monthly meetings and publish them as the second chapter of my
speech. And, gentlemen, those two chapters you will find the longest;
they will not amount to much more than what I have to say taking up the
subject at the present time.

But in speaking of the United States, we who are native-born have a
country of which we may well be proud. Those of us who have been abroad
are better able, perhaps, to make the comparison of our enjoyments and
our c