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MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL DINNER OF THE ST. NICHOLAS SOCIETY, NEW YORK,
DECEMBER 6, 1900
Doctor Mackay, in his response to the toast "St. Nicholas,"
referred to Mr. Clemens, saying:--"Mark Twain is as true a
preacher of true righteousness as any bishop, priest, or
minister of any church to-day, because he moves men to forget
their faults by cheerful well-doing instead of making them sour
and morbid by everlastingly bending their attention to the
seamy and sober side of life."
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE ST. NICHOLAS SOCIETY,--These are,
indeed, prosperous days for me. Night before last, in a speech, the
Bishop of the Diocese of New York complimented me for my contribution to
theology, and to-night the Reverend Doctor Mackay has elected me to the
ministry. I thanked Bishop Potter then for his compliment, and I thank
Doctor Mackay now for that promotion. I think that both have discerned
in me what I long ago discerned, but what I was afraid the world would
never learn to recognize.
In this absence of nine years I find a great improvement in the city of
New York. I am glad to speak on that as a toast--"The City of New York."
Some say it has improved because I have been away. Others, and I agree
with them, say it has improved because I have come back. We must judge
of a city, as of a man, by its external appearances and by its inward
character. In externals the foreigner coming to these shores is more
impressed at first by our sky-scrapers. They are new to him. He has not
done anything of the sort since he built the tower of Babel. The
foreigner is shocked by them.
In the daylight they are ugly. They are--well, too chimneyfied and too
snaggy--like a mouth that needs attention from a dentist; like a cemetery
that is all monuments and no gravestones. But at night, seen from the
river where they are columns towering against the sky, all sparkling with
light, they are fairylike; they are beauty more satisfactory to the soul
and more enchanting than anything that man has dreamed of since the
Arabian nights. We can't always have the beautiful aspect of things.
Let us make the most of our sights that are beautiful and let the others
go. When your foreigner makes disagreeable comments on New York by
daylight, float him down the river at night.
What has made these sky-scrapers possible is the elevator. The cigar-box
which the European calls a "lift" needs but to be compared with our
elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors.
That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American
elevator acts like the man's patent purge--it worked. As the inventor
said, "This purge doesn't waste any time fooling around; it attends
strictly to business."
That New-Yorkers have the cleanest, quickest, and most admirable system
of street railways in the world has been forced upon you by the abnormal
appreciation you have of your hackman. We ought always to be grateful to
him for that service. Nobody else would have brought such a system into
existence for us. We ought to build him a monument. We owe him one as
much as we owe one to anybody. Let it be a tall one. Nothing permanent,
of course; build it of plaster, say. Then gaze at it and realize how
grateful we are--for the time being--and then pull it down and throw it
on the ash-heap. That's the way to honor your public heroes.
As to our streets, I find them cleaner than they used to be. I miss
those dear old landmarks, the symmetrical mountain ranges of dust and
dirt that used to be piled up along the streets for the wind and rain to
tear down at their pleasure. Yes, New York is cleaner than Bombay.
I realize that I have been in Bombay, that I now am in New York; that it
is not my duty to flatter Bombay, but rather to flatter New York.
Compared with the wretched attempts of London to light that city, New
York may fairly be said to be a well-lighted city. Why, London's attempt
at good lighting is almost as bad as London's attempt at rapid transit.
There is just one good system of rapid transit in London--the "Tube," and
that, of course, had been put in by Americans. Perhaps, after a while,
those Americans will come back and give New York also a good underground
system. Perhaps they have already begun. I have been so busy since I
came back that I haven't had time as yet to go down cellar.
But it is by the laws of the city, it is by the manners of the city, it
is by the ideals of the city, it is by the customs of the city and by the
municipal government which all these elements correct, support, and
foster, by which the foreigner judges the city. It is by these that he
realizes that New York may, indeed, hold her head high among the cities
of the world. It is by these standards that he knows whether to class
the city higher or lower than the other municipalities of the world.
Gentlemen, you have the best municipal government in the world--
the purest and the most fragrant. The very angels envy you, and wish
they could establish a government like it in heaven. You got it by a
noble fidelity to civic duty. You got it by stern and ever-watchful
exertion of the great powers with which you are charged by the rights
which were handed down to you by your forefathers, by your manly refusal
to let base men invade the high places of your government, and by instant
retaliation when any public officer has insulted you in the city's name
by swerving in the slightest from the upright and full performance of his
duty. It is you who have made this city the envy of the cities of the
world. God will bless you for it--God will bless you for it. Why, when
you approach the final resting-place the angels of heaven will gather at
the gates and cry out:
"Here they come! Show them to the archangel's box, and turn the lime-
light on them!" |
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