the City of New York, December
22, 1882. Josiah M. Fiske, the President, occupied the chair. Dr.
Paxton responded for "The Clergy."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--There is no help for it, alas!
now. The Pilgrim or Puritan doth bestride the broad continent like
another Colossus and we Dutch, English, Scotch, Scotch-Irish, and Irish
walk about under his huge legs [laughter]; "we must bend our bodies when
he doth carelessly nod to us." For the Puritan is the pious Joseph of
the land, and to his sheaf all our sheaves must make obeisance. As he
pipes unto us so we dance. He takes the chief seat at every national
feast and compels us highway-and-hedge people, us unfortunate Dutch and
Scotch-Irish, to come in and shout his triumphs and praise at his own
self-glorification meetings. [Laughter and applause.] Of course we all
know it's a clear case of the tail wagging the dog. But it is too late
now to go back to the order of nature or the truth of history. The
Puritan, like another Old Man of the Sea, is astride our shoulders and
won't come down, protest, pray, roll, wriggle as Sindbad may. Why, the
Puritan has imposed his Thanksgiving Day and pumpkin-pie upon South
Carolina, even. [Applause.] He got mad at the old Whig party, on account
of his higher law and abolitionism, and put it to death. When the
Puritan first came to these shores, he made the way to heaven so narrow
that only a tight-rope performer could walk it. [Laughter.] Now, what
with his Concord philosophies, transcendentalisms, and every heresy, he
has made it so wide that you could drive all Barnum's elephants abreast
upon it and through the strait gate. He compels us to send our sons to
his colleges for his nasal note. He is communicating his dyspepsia to
the whole country by means of codfish-balls and baked beans. He has
encouraged the revolt of women, does our thinking, writes our books,
insists on his standard of culture, defines our God, and, as the
crowning glory of his audacity, has imposed his own sectional, fit, and
distinguishing name upon us all, and swells with gratified pride to hear
all the nations of the earth speak of all Americans as Yankees.
[Laughter and applause.]

I would enter a protest, but what use? We simply grace his triumph, and
no images may be hung at this feast but the trophies of the Puritan. For
all that, I mean to say a brief word for my Scotch-Irish race in
America. Mr. President, General Horace Porter, on my left,