Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/502



The University of Pennsylvania for many years has celebrated the 22d of February, holding exercises in the American Academy of Music, where some man of wide reputation makes an address to the assembled classes and invited public. These demonstrations are regarded as of more than ordinary importance and seats are much in demand, and requests for them often end in disappointment. Of the Presidents, McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft have made addresses upon these occasions. Upon that date in 1910 Charles E. Hughes, then governor of New York, delivered the oration and received the degree of Doctor of Laws. I was introduced to him in the foyer of the Academy, where the trustees assembled and from which they marched in procession to the stage.

“Everybody knows Governor Pennypacker,” was his response.

With heavy black whiskers around his face, with more hair there than on his head, with very much the manner of a grocer selling sugar over a counter, he gave the impression of one whose cultivation had very recently begun. The color of the skin, the timbre of the voice and the physical composure, showing no disturbance of nerve, all indicated good health and satisfactory nutrition. His address was delivered with sonorous tones that could be easily heard over the house, and he pleased his audience, who gave him hearty applause. In matter it was commonplace in the extreme, giving no evidence either of learning, acuteness of thought or grasp of his subject. In the main it was an effort to convince his hearers that men in public and private life ought to be virtuous in order to reap a due reward of happiness, accompanied with the suggestion that there are officials, not himself, who fail to pursue this course and deserve retribution.

At the dinner given in the evening by the alumni, I was the toastmaster, and I inquired of James M. Beck, the 482