Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/439

 interest, $14,343.15, has been paid into the treasury of the commonwealth, and in your behalf I thank the state treasurer (Mathues) for the care with which this deposit, when made, was safeguarded and for the promptness with which it has been collected.

I likewise announce that on the 3d of April, 1906, there was paid into the treasury $236,762.65, collected from the United States Government for moneys loaned to it by this commonwealthin the War of 1812.

It is a psychological phenomenon. For the purposes of a political campaign, by suggestion that possibly the money might be lost, the people could be worked up into a frenzy and persuaded to put an incapable like Berry in charge of their finances. The proof that it was safe in the treasury was treated with absolute indifference. The fact that moneys due for a century had been finally collected attracted no attention whatever and no journal thought it worth its while to say a word of appreciation. Still trying to make the most of the situation, the Record said: “Political pull secured for the Enterprise Bank heavy deposits of state money which served to give it the appearance of stability and lured the credulous people of Allegheny to intrust it with their private savings.”

On the 17th began in Philadelphia the celebration by the American Philosophical Society, the oldest scientific organization in the United States, and the University of Pennsylvania, of the two hundre d th anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin. Many men of distinction in science and others conspicuous in the various walks of life, came from over the world to attend. Among them were Hugo de Vries of Amsterdam; Sir George H. Darwin, son of Charles Darwin; Alois Brandl of Berlin; Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy; and Andrew Carnegie, There was a dinner at the Bellevue-Stratford at which I made a speech. On my left sat Henry Cabot Lodge, of Rh