ty-one years old when elected President--an unusually
old man to be elected to that high office; and he had served his
country during the War of the Revolution. When I consider this
the thought occurs to me, How young as a Nation we are, after all.
Why, I date almost back to the Revolution! President Taft jocularly
remarked to me recently: "Here's my old friend, Uncle Shelby. He
comes nearer connecting the present with the days of Washington
than any one whom I know." And I suppose there are few men in
public life whose careers extend farther into the past than mine.

During my early life the survivors of the Revolutionary War, to
say nothing of the War of 1812, were very numerous and abundantly
in evidence. Up to that time, no man who had not served his country
in some capacity in the Revolutionary War had been elevated to the
Presidency, and this was the case until the year 1843.

During the year 1829 the crown of Great Britain descended from King
George IV to King William IV. That reign passed away, and I have
lived to see the long reign of Victoria come and go, the reign of
Edward VII come and go, and the accession of King George V. Charles
X ruled in France, Francis I in Austria (the reign of Francis Joseph
had not yet begun), Frederick William III in Prussia, Nicholas I
in Russia; while Leo XII governed the Papal States, the Kingdom of
Italy not yet having come into existence. The United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland had not yet a population of 24,000,000,
all told.

From the dawn of this epoch may well date the practical beginning
of a long cycle of political and intellectual upheaval, and the
readjustment of relations which go to make up world-history, arriving
at a culmination in our great Civil War.

In the last half-century--nay, I might say, within the last two
decades--there has been a mighty impulse in the direction of
scientific investigation, of mechanical invention, of preventive
medicine, of economic improvement, and the like. Germany, in some
respects, has led, but our own country has not been far behind.
Independent research has been wonderfully productive, and rivalry
has been keen. Often the mere suggestion of one scientist has been
taken up and elaborated (or discredited) by other scientists; the
idea of one inventor has been seized upon and bettered, or possibly
proved valueless, by other inventors. The paths to the remote and
inaccessible have been toiled over by rival ex