shown strength and resolution enough not
only to preserve itself, to preserve the great heritage our fathers have
given us of civil liberty here, but also to carry it to the isles of the
sea, and, if necessary, to the nations beyond the sea. Of one thing I am
very sure, that had our fathers been called on to solve this problem
they would have solved it, not in the light of a hundred years ago, but
in that of the present.

Among the problems that confront us we have one great problem, already
alluded to indirectly to-night. You do not have it here in the North as
we have it with us in the South, and yet, I think, it is a problem that
vitally concerns you too. There is no problem that can greatly affect
one section of this country that does not affect the other. As I came
into your city to-night I saw your great structure across the river
here, binding the two great cities together and making them one, and I
remember that as I came the last time into your beautiful bay down
yonder, I saw what seemed to be a mere web of gossamer, a bare hand's
breadth along the horizon. It seemed as if I might have swept it away
with my hand if I could have reached it, so airy and light it was in the
distance, but when I came close to it to-night I found that it was one
of the greatest structures that human intellect has ever devised. I saw
it thrilling and vibrating with every energy of our pulsating, modern
life. At a distance it looked as if the vessels nearest would strike it,
full head, and carry it away. When I reached it I saw that it was so
high, so vast, that the traffic of your great stream passed easily
backward and forward under it. So it is with some of these problems.
They may appear very small to you, ladies and gentlemen, or to us, when
seen at a distance--as though merely a hand-sweep would get rid of them;
but I tell you they are too vast to be moved easily.

There is one that with us overshadows all the rest. The great
Anglo-Saxon race in the section of this country containing the
inhabitants of the South understands better than you do the gravity of
that great problem which confronts them. It is "like the pestilence that
walketh in darkness, the destruction that wasteth at noonday." It
confronts us all the day; it is the spectre that ever sits beside our
bed. No doubt we make mistakes about it; no doubt there are outbreaks
growing out of some phases of it that astound, and shock, and stun you,
as they do ourselves. Bu