Now I come to Benjamin Franklin. An accomplished scholar, born in Germany, once asked me why in Boston we were so chary of our honors to Benjamin Franklin, seeing Boston is best known by half the world as Franklin's birthplace. I could only say, as I said just now, that we had so many great men to commemorate that we could not say half we would about any of them. But it was a poor apology.

Franklin is the oldest of our signers of the Declaration. At the time of Sam Adams's birth, Franklin is leaving Boston for his Philadelphia home. Fifty-three years after, as a representative of Pennsylvania, he signs the Declaration in what my friend, the old writing-master, Mr. Jonathan Snelling, used to call in one of his writing book copies the 'Boston style of writing."

In the same year he crossed the ocean to France, and arrived in Paris just before Christmas. Lord Stormont, the English ambassador, at once reported his arrival in England, to be told in reply by his chief, Lord North, that he need not distress himself about the movements of an old man of seventy." But before the old man of seventy had done with France he had dictated the treaty of independence. He had compelled George III - the Brummagem Louis XIV - to surrender half his empire, and by far the better half, as it has proved.

So majestic was Franklin's diplomacy that when the English ministry compelled the House of Commons to ratify the treaty, it was openly said that America had seven negotiators to make it, while the King of England had none.

So was it that the town of Boston-will the mayor let me say the Latin School?-sent the diplomatist to Europe who crowned the work of independence, as in Samuel Adams

she had kept at home the far-seeing statesman who began it. These are our jewels!

Far in advance of all other men in the work of independence are the two greatest men yet born in AmericaWashington and Franklin. Two men who honored each other, absolutely and without jealousy. One, in America, established independence; one, in Europe, made independence possible. The croakers tell us that in government by democracy the people cannot find their true leaders, and do not trust them when found. Tell me in what oligarchy, in what empire, was ever a people so loyal to a leader, in good report and in evil fortune, as the people of America to Washington? And in what empire or in what oligarchy has any nation ever found a diplomatist who is to be named on the same day with Benjamin Franklin?

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Of leaders in lower rank I must not speak even to name them. First, second and last, here is the old Puritan sense of duty the present service of the present God. It is in the hunger of Valley Forge; it is in the wilderness tramp under Arnold; it is in the injustice of Newburgh, when the war was done. Duty first! To serve where God has placed me!

And when the field of such service is their own field the triumph is simply magnificent.

I must not even attempt to describe the work of Massachusetts at sea in the War of Independence. Enough to say that the treaty of peace was forced on England by seven years of losses at sea. Her enemy was Massachusetts. In the year 1777 King George employed 45,000 men in the English navy, in all oceans of the world. In the same year New England employed against him 80,000 men upon the Atlantic alone. Of these nine tenths were from Massachusetts.

Remember that, through the war, America had more men

on the sea fighting the King than Washington ever commanded on the land. Of these sea kings, nine tenths, at least, were from Massachusetts. From first to last more than 3,000 prizes were taken from the English merchant marine by the American cruisers and privateers, most of them by the men of Massachusetts. And here is the reason why, when the war ended, the merchants of London insisted that it should endthe same men who, when it began, were hounding Lord North and George III to their ruin.

GRANT

U

LYSSES S. GRANT, soldier, statesman, and the eighteenth President of the United States, was born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, April 27, 1822. He was the oldest of six children and spent his boyhood on his father's farm. He attended the village school and was appointed to the United States Military Academy in 1839, where he was noted for proficiency in mathematics and horsemanship. He graduated in 1843 and, in 1845, joined the army of occupation under General Taylor in Mexico. He served with distinction during the Mexican war and was twice brevetted. In 1848 he returned to Pascagoula, Mississippi, with his regiment; and on August 22 of that year married Miss Julia B. Dent at St. Louis. After five years of service at various army posts he received his commission as captain on August 5, 1853, and the following year resigned and settled on a small farm near St. Louis. In 1860 he removed to Galena, Illinois, and became a clerk in his father's hardware and leather store. At the beginning of the civil war he offered his services to the national government but no answer to his letter was ever received. On June 17, 1861, he was appointed colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Regiment of infantry. Throughout the war he displayed the highest skill and was promoted to the supreme command of the Union forces. As a man and as a soldier he was possessed of the finest traits of character. He combined with self-reliance and fertility of resource a moral and physical courage equal to all emergencies. In 1866 General Grant served as secretary of war under President Johnson, during the temporary suspension of Secretary Stanton. He was nominated for the presidency at Chicago May 20, 1868, and was elected over the Democratic nominee, Horatio Seymour, of New York. He was nominated for a second term June 5, 1872, and was again elected. His first administration was characterized by the inauguration of many important reforms. The national debt was reduced over $450,000,000 and the balance of trade changed from $130,000,000 against this country to $130,000,000 in its favor.

On retiring from the presidency in 1877, General Grant made a tour around the world and was everywhere received with honors usually accorded only to royalty. In 1880 his name was again presented at the Republican national convention, but he did not receive the party's nomination. In 1881 he took up his residence in New York and became a partner in the banking house of Grant & Ward. The failure of this firm in 1884 made him a bankrupt, but on March 4, 1885, Congress created him a general on the retired list, thus restoring him to his former rank. He died on Mount McGregor, New York, July 23, 1885, from cancer at the root of the tongue. His contributions to literature consist of his "Memoirs " and several articles on the war, written for the "North American Review and the Century Magazine.

F

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

DELIVERED MARCH 4, 1873

ELLOW CITIZENS,- Under Providence I have been called a second time to act as Executive over this

great nation. It has been my endeavor in the past to maintain all the laws, and, as far as lay in my power, to act for the best interests of the whole people. My best efforts will be given in the same direction in the future, aided, I trust, by my four years' experience in the office.

When my first term of the office of chief executive began, the country had not recovered from the effects of a great internal revolution, and three of the former States of the Union had not been restored to their federal relations.

It seemed to me wise that no new questions should be raised so long as that condition of affairs existed. Therefore, the past four years, so far as I could control events, have been consumed in the effort to restore harmony, public credit, commerce and all the arts of peace and progress. It is my firm conviction that the civilized world is tending toward republicanism, or government by the people, through their chosen representatives, and that our own great Republic is destined to be the guiding star to all others.

Under our Republic we support an army less than that of any European power of any standing, and a navy less than that of either of at least five of them. There could be no extension of territory on the continent which would call for an increase of this force, but rather might such extension enable us to diminish it.