d, the President of the Society, said, in
introducing the speaker: "The next toast is entitled 'The
Responsibility of having Ancestors,' and will be responded to by
Professor Woodrow Wilson,[13] of Princeton. I know you will give
him such a welcome as will indicate that, while we are mostly Yale
men here, we are not jealous of Princeton."]

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:--I am not of your blood;
I am not a Virginia Cavalier, as Dr. Hill [David J. Hill. See Vol. II.]
has suggested. Sometimes I wish I were; I would have more fun. I come,
however, of as good blood as yours; in some respects a better. Because
the Scotch-Irish, though they are just as much in earnest as you are,
have a little bit more gayety and more elasticity than you have.
Moreover they are now forming a Scotch-Irish society, which will, as
fast as human affairs will allow, do exactly what the New England
Societies are doing, viz.: annex the universe. [Laughter.] We believe
with a sincere belief, we believe as sincerely as you do the like, that
we really made this country. Not only that, but we believe that we can
now, in some sort of way, demonstrate the manufacture, because the
country has obviously departed in many respects from the model which you
claim to have set. Not only that, but it seems to me that you yourselves
are becoming a little recreant to the traditions you yearly celebrate.

It seems to me that you are very much in the position, with reference to
your forefathers, that the little boy was with reference to his
immediate father. The father was a very busy man; he was away at his
work before the children were up in the morning and did not come home
till after they had gone to bed at night. One day this little boy was
greatly incensed, as he said, "to be whipped by that gentleman that
stays here on Sundays." I do not observe that you think about your
ancestors the rest of the week; I do not observe that they are very much
present in your thoughts at any other time save on Sunday, and that then
they are most irritating to you. I have known a great many men descended
from New England ancestors and I do not feel half so hardly toward my
ancestors as they do toward theirs. There is a distant respect about the
relationship which is touching. There is a feeling that these men are
well and safely at a distance, and that they would be indulged under no
other circumstances whatever; and that the beauty of it is to h