prophesy without objection. We can look forward to the time. when we will be sitting in the seats now occupied with you with our lives not before us, but behind us, only waiting till the shadows are a little longer drawn, and we can predict that your sons and your daughters will be the same honored and respected citizens that you are. Not pioneers, perhaps, nor strong with the struggles which come from hardships encountered and struggles overcome in planting a city in the wilderness, but strong because the same pioneer blood and the same pioneer character has come down from ancestor to descendant. I am one of those that believe that blood is thicker than water, and I believe that the children of the early settlers will do their part to shoulder the responsibilities and take up the burden that you leave behind. Some of us are not so old or not so young but that we have seen this city grow from forty to four hundred thousand, and some of us are not so old but that we may see it grow to twice four hundred thousand. Are we willing to do as much for the growth and progress of this city as you have done for its birth? I believe, and I am no pessimist, when I say that the children of the early settlers will do their part to make this city a better city and this nation a better nation. The descendants of the pioneers, those who have in them the strain of blood of those who came here in early days, those who bent their struggles of early days; it is your children who ought to know more than anyone else the worth of this Republic, and see to it that it is preserved in its integrity; for if the children of the fathers and mothers of the Republic are not willing to guide and direct it, and guide and direct it rightly, how can we expect those to do it who come here from foreign lands and become citizens after they have been here but a few years? And I say if there is any use in this Society at all, it it is make your children feel the importance of their birth right and their ancestry; and although they may not be able to be pioneers, yet they may be able to take up the work in the spirit in which it was conceived, and that is, to do justice to all men, to promote the widest liberty and to obey the laws.

The quartet then sang "They kissed, I saw them do it."

The President then introduced Rev. Lathrop Cooley, who addressed the meeting as follows:

ADDRESS BY MR. COOLEY.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It has always been a great pleasure to me to be present upon these occasions, and yet there is a degree of sadness when we miss so many familiar faces. There must be something very sad to Mr. Gray, when he remembers more than one hundred familiar faces contemplating a document that should be the polar star of the great State of Ohio, when they are all gone but himself. Shadows come up before him and those familiar names cast, I say, a sadness over us, and yet there is a gladness. Mr. Gray ought to be glad, and we all ought to be glad who have known the history of such men as were mentioned by him this forenoon, whose names are fragrant with intelligence.

I had thought upon this occasion of occupying your attention for a short time with the early rise of Mormonism upon the Western Reserve, which took place in the fourth decade of this century, but when I thought over the matter, it came to me that it might not be a subject in which you might be interested, although I, at the time, was much interested. I knew the President of the Mormon church in its early life, I mean Mr. Snow. I might say I knew his sister better, because we once took a horseback ride together, and in that early time we rode two on one horse. This lady, for she was a lady when I knew her-she was not a Mormon then-she afterwards became one of the principal actors in the Sealing House in Salt Lake City, where they have the scenery of the Garden of Eden, one man representing the cloven foot, the devil, and one woman representing Mother Eve. When they cast about to find the most beautiful woman in all Salt Lake City, they graciously received in that high honorable position, according to their traditions and customs, the sister of

the present President of the Mormon church, Miss Snow, who taught school in our neighborhood when the country was new, and with whom I had the pleasure of riding horse-back one Saturday afternoon. So you see, after taking a horse-back ride with Mother Eve, I belong to the old settlers, without a doubt.

I pass by today the fourth decade, and I am going to take up a few things that belong to the last decade of the first half of the century. Twice the clock strikes twelve throughout the twenty-four hours. Twice we pass periods in a century. We are at the evening of the last half of the most marvellous of centuries, and I look upon the last decade of the first half of the century as the most significant, the most prophetic and most important of all the decades of the century, and I will briefly tell you why. When I entered that decade sixty years ago, of course, we had the political contest then. Harrison, an Ohio man, living in a cabin as the rest of us did at an early date, was before the people to be elected as a Whig candidate to the presidential chair. Hard cider they said he drank, and lived in a cabin, and we said all right, log cabin, hard cider and coon skins would bring him into the chair, and it did. Log cabins stood in the city of Cleveland at that time, and log cabins were everywhere. Early customs were prominent, and it swept the whole land and brought him to the presidential chair, and in thirty days the undertaker came and prepared him for another seat. In thirty days Harrison was gone and Tyler took his place-Tyler, whose name is not very fragrant for this reason: we all admire a straightforward, honest man. In the language of Henry Clay, "I would rather be a man than to be President of the United States and lose my manhood."

Some of you perhaps remember what was called the "Tyler coat." It was so made that you could have one color on one side and another color on the other side, and it was made so that you could turn it and it looked then as though it was made for that side. The old people remember something about that. And why? Because Tyler turned away from the platform adopted by the Whigs, changed, and when Congress instituted or rather in

augurated the United States Bank he vetoed it. But that is not the particular thing I wish to mention especially.

When I entered this decade in the forties, there was not a sewing machine in the work room, not a reaper or mower in the field; there was not one foot of telegraph wire stretched overhead or under foot or under the seas, not one. There was not a photograph in all the land. We had no California gold, she had not given up her treasures to us. Slavery, though it did not extend from the gulf to the lakes and from sea to sea, yet here in Ohio, under the shadow of Oberlin College, men were taken, chained and taken back into bondage for no crime save the color of their skins. I wonder if there are any of the Oberlin boys here remember that load of hay that was full of darkies. You know 'the old saying, "There is a darkey in the wood pile." In those days there was a load of hay that went to the lake full of darkies. I remember looking upon the faces of some men that came here from Virginia to get their slaves; they got them and started back with them, and the boys turned out, headed them off and got out a writ of kidnapping. Of course they must be brought up to Elyria, and they had to wait there until they could send to Virginia to get evidence that these were their slaves. I was in the court house when that matter came up for trial, and they very willingly said, "Yes, we will put the slaves in the prison here in Elyria until you come back with your evidence." And they put them in, but they said that this man was a blacksmith by trade, and he knew the strength of iron, and that he broke the bars and in less than twenty-four hours he was on his way to Canada. When a man's feet touched the soil of Canada he was free, his shackles fell; when a man breathed Canadian air he was a slave no longer. It was not so in Ohio. That was the condition of things away back there in the forties.

Now, before that decade closed there was stored up in the hearts of the people on this Western Reserve a sentiment. First, free soil, second, free men; they went together. I was with a little company in this city in an upper room; (I know not one

surviving today except myself of that little company). We were looking out for the organization of the movement that should sweep slavery from this land of liberty and break the chains that shackled more than five million of men under our flag and our Constitution. John A. Foote was there, son of Governor Foote of Connecticut, and brother of Commodore Foote, and old father Keep was there in that convention from Oberlin, that old man who was the first President of the Board of Oberlin College. And when they decided that they would open the doors of the college to all men and women of all classes, whatever might be the color of their skin, it was Father Keep of Oberlin who decided it. The Board was equally divided, but Father Keep being the chairman, he arose and cast the vote and opened the door to all alike. John A. Foote arose and said, "Friends, we have got a big work on hand, and we need all the help we can get, and I propose Father Keep engage in a word of prayer." Was there ever anything like that before or since in a political gathering? We wanted all the help we could have. Think of a little company in an upper room! Edwin Cowles, I think was there, but that company is all gone, but their work has not gone. Their work started there, and this Western Reserve has been the spouting ground of grand old trees whose branches reach heavenward today, trees of liberty, and trees of culture and intelligence. Here in Cleveland was the man that secured the law organizing free schools for all in the State of Ohio, whose monument stands in a near-by park today. Here in Ohio were the principles started that lifted up the people to a high degree of culture and intelligence. I am not surprised to know that Mr. Bancroft, a man whose acquaintance I made more than forty years ago, said, "I have seen much of the world, but for intelligence and home life I know of no land like the Western Reserve."

I heard the Governor of Massachusetts once say before an audience, speaking of Garfield's life and of his last days, he observed that there was an illustration of an American home, for the first act of that brave, true man was to press the lips of his