Page:Visit of the Hon. Carl Schurz to Boston, March 1881.pdf/62

Rh . I will now call, gentlemen, upon one of the most independent of Massachusetts politicians; a gentleman who sometimes goes to conventions, but who is never conventional,—the Rev. James Freeman Clarke.

, Sir, are the methods of European despotisms! Gentlemen come together to have a pleasant dinner in each other's society, and they suddenly find themselves called upon by your arbitrary authority to make a speech. But, Sir, I am equal to the occasion. I suspected how it might be. When I knew that we were to have for our guest this evening a gentleman guilty of the crime of having been born in Europe, and whose early life, as is well known, was spent in the service of emperors and kings, I thought that we might have introduced here some of the dark and cruel methods of imperial governments. I therefore carefully wrote out a speech and put it in my pocket; and, to save time, I will now read it.

I think, Sir, that though Boston has done several things during her brief existence, she has seldom honored herself in a more graceful way than by her reception to-night of our distinguished friend. The invitation which has brought him here was signed by leading men of every party, sect, and way of thinking,—conservatives and radicals, statesmen, divines, men of business, men of literature,—rep-