preparing to dispense the spoils according to the hunger and thirst of
their retainers, to their amazed horror there is heard the voice of a
native of Rhode Island, who has conceived a scheme almost too monstrous
for mention, which he designates "Civil Service Reform," and who with
characteristic effrontery has got up a society, of which he is
president, for the purpose of diffusing his blood-curdling sentiments.
Do we need to look further for a reply to the question, "Why are the New
Englanders unpopular?" Almost any man is unpopular who goes around with
his pockets full of moral dynamite. [Applause.]

But perhaps I have not yet reached the most essential cause of the
odium. Men will forgive a man almost anything if he only fails; but we,
alas! have committed the crime of success. [Laughter and applause.] It
makes people angry when they see New England prospering, influential,
the banker of the country, leading public sentiment, shaping
legislation. Men would not mind so much if this success were attained
by a happy accident, or were the result of a favoring fortune; but it is
aggravating to see the New Englanders, to whom Providence has given
nothing but rocks and ice and weather--a great deal of it--and a
thermometer [laughter], yet mining gold in Colorado, chasing the walrus
off the Aleutian Islands, building railroads in Dakota, and covering
half the continent with insurance, and underlying it with a mortgage.
Success is the one unpardonable crime. [Renewed laughter and applause.]

It is true, when a man has so far acknowledged his participation in the
common frailty as to die, then men begin to condone his faults; and by
the time he is dead one or two hundred years they find him quite
tolerable. An eminent ecclesiastic in the Anglican Church recently
pronounced the greatest of the Puritans, Oliver Cromwell, "the most
righteous ruler England ever had." A man who is dead is out of the way.
We live in the home which he built, and are not disturbed by the chips
and sawdust and noise, and perhaps the casualties and mistakes, which
attended its building. I will offer a definition (without charge) to the
editors of the magnificent "Century Dictionary": "Saint--a man with
convictions, who has been dead a hundred years; canonized now,
cannonaded then." [Laughter and applause.]

We are building monuments now to the Abolitionists. It is quite possible
that when a hundred winters shall have shed their snows upon the lonely