Show AIN cuts 1011 J how phillips wrote oration phi beta kappa address at harvard in 1881 composed wh ie le he lay stretched upon a sofa couch accompanied by my friend of othel days the late john boyle 0 reilly the poet I 1 was walking through Es aex ex street boston one afternoon in the summer of 1882 when my atten tion was attracted to a face in the window of a typical bow windowed boston home it was a face like that of a graven image perfectly motion less and there was an expression of severe dignity and yet of perfect re pose upon it I 1 turned to mr 0 oreilly reilly that looks like wendell phillips I 1 said it looks like wendell phillips be cause it is wendell phillips mr 0 reilly replied that Is his boston home here he has lived tor for many years resisting the inevitable march of business which is soon to swallow up the few remaining homes upon this and neighboring streets mr phillips mr oreilly went on s ery iery fond of sitting in that V window sometimes he occupies his chair there tor for hours seeming scarce ly IY to move and I 1 have been told that frequently when in that perfect repose he writes mentally portions of an ora tion or address but even more interesting to me was the manner in which mr phillips wrote his now famous phi beta kappa oration the scholar in a lie delivered last year at the centen nial inal anniversary of the phi beta kap pa society at harvard you may recall that the address was one that stung he spoke for civil and religious lib erty and he made a bitter accusation against men of scholarship who mho took so little part in public affairs and who when they did usually sided with the aristocratic and the rich well in the room at the rear of the one in which you saw mr air phillps how archbo shop john hughes t t angly performed great service for the nat on by H s loy alty to weed this is the hitherto unpublished story of the archbishop of the roman catholic church who because he would not permit a close personal friend to be put in the way of being humiliated unwittingly performed a great service for the union at a most critical period of the civil war this church dignitary was john hughes from to 1864 the year of his death the head of his church in new york city shortly after the outbreak of the war var president lincoln as history states determined to send abroad to great britain and france a special embassy to work for the cause of the union and against the foreign corn com missioners miss loners of the confederacy one of the men he appointed on this corn com mission was the late charles P sic me ilvaine protestant episcopal bishop of ohio and another was yas archa shop john hugles hugl u an ardent friend boti of the union and of lincoln and al aio alo o a very energetic and earnest worker and a most eloquent speaker trese two dignitaries alen wl en they met in washington ashington shortly after they had been formally notI of their selection election by the president were unde impression that the third member of the commission was to be thurlow weed but the archbishop had been in the cap tal only a day or so when he began to suspect that it was not the purpose of the secretary of state william H seward to clothe mr air I 1 weed with full plenipotentiary pow erb notwithstanding the informal re port that bid tid been printed that the three special lors would be the two ecclesiastics and mr weed now archbishop hughes and mr air weed were close personal friends and the more the arel b shop thought about the matter the more excited he be came at last lie determined to beard the secretary of state in his office and have t out with inith him as regarded his friend s position upon the commission the archa hop lost no time in coming to the point once he had gained mr seward s presence secretary seward he said I 1 un der stand that the commissions ot of bishop dishop mcillvaine McIlva lne and myself as cial ambassadors lors of president lin coin coln to great britain and france are about to be made out but I 1 have also heard that mr IN weed eed is not to be ap pointed ds as a fellow commissioner yes aid laid secretary sebird we have decided that we will appoint mr ivee W I 1 as secretary ary of the commis eion eton secretary of the commiss on ex claimed the archa shop we don t need any an secretary why is not mr aneed eed appointed full well replied secretary seward he ie tas I 1 as no official character depre pent noth ng but h myself and it seemed to me that for this reason it ou d be the better part not to name i n of the cammi s boners sitting at his window a moment ago there Is a sofa couch after mr air phil lips had accepted the invitation to ad dress the harvard phi beta society he shut himself up in his room as I 1 have been told for three or four days and most of the time he lay stretched out upon that sofa couch occasion ally some member of the household chancing to pass through the room would see hia his lips moving but they would hear no sound they knew that he was writing his oration for the phi beta deta kappa anniversary cele bration writing it mentally although I 1 should add that one of my friends Is of the opinion that the address thus c composed was not the one delivered to the harvard students and alumni but was another one but as I 1 have the story at the end of the three oi 01 four days mr phillips arose from the sofa which he had not left except to take his meals or his night s sleep or to perform some de I 1 hay r inv T confessed to tu authorship he admitted to a curious friend that he read the proofs of the bread winners and ended mystery I 1 it was in 1883 that there appeared anonymously the novel called the bread winners at once a deep in terest was taken in the problem of establishing the identity of the au an thor and while from time to time through the years many persons of authority attributed the novel to john hay the literary world generally did not know for a surety until after his death that he it was vas who wrote that tha t once popular stor but long before the general public knew for a certainty that mr air hay was friendship helped save urt union instantly the archbishop fired up I 1 e was a large man physically as well as intellectually and of imnetu ous temper mr vir secretary he be cried he after ward admitted that he spoke a little excitedly mr air secretary I 1 want to say just one thing to you either thurlow weed goes as an equal mem her ber of this commission in authority and representative capacity or I 1 don t go now you ou decide that for yourself I 1 shan t make any other argument there will be three corn missioners miss loners of whom thurlow weed aeed is one or I 1 will not be a member of the commission tor bor an appreciable space ot of time the two men sat facing each other in then since the almin istra tion deemed it absolutely necessary that archbishop john hughes should be a member of the commission he received assurances that thurlow weed would go to europe with him and bishop mcilvaine as a fellow plen and on of the greatest romances in all our political history is that which tells how M mr r weed a few weeks later prevented te d tl tie e em pei or louis napoleon from declaring that prance france would recognize the so athern confederacy cop 1910 by E I 1 voted service for his invalid wife and he arose with the address completed yet he had not put pen to paper he had not a scrap of memorandum ol 01 what hp he had planned to say but the address every word of it was indell bly printed upon the tablets of his mind so that he read it clearly ar ard d without error when he came to de liver it with his mind s eye consequently at no time that he was ering that superb and classic oration did be he run any danger of forgetting any portion of it tt a great danger that Is constantly before anyone who writes out an address on paper and then commits it to memory but what you have said does not explain mr air phillips wonderful melo dious voice his perfectly distinct enunciation and his apparent conver national sat lonal ional tone I 1 said ah answered mr 0 reilly god gave him that vocal organ for public speaking and he was ever mentally practising practicing enunciation and the lurking power that Is in the apparently patently ly gesture copyright 1910 by E B J adwards Ld wards the author of the dread bread winner I 1 I 1 a became morally certain that he was 11 and in a rather amusing manner said ri to me sometime ago that veteran journalist and lecturer william 11 II mcelroy who was once associated with mr hay in editorial work tor for a number of years 1 at the time that bread dread win i ners appeared continued mr me elroy I 1 was thoroughly familiar with mr hays literary style and methods and his views upon uron political and civic S questions so at the first reading of ji the book I 1 couldn coulden t help thinking that john john hay was its author yet I 1 was somewhat perplexed by reason of the h frequent somewhat technical and cau can wj w j bious denials from mr hay hays s closest friends that he was the author of the I 1 story and this perplexity lasted until a year or so before mr air hay went to the court of st james as our t dor he as entertained in buffalo by an intimate friend of both mr hay and myself this friend like many other amer leans had puzzled his head greatly over the identity of the author of the book and he too had come to the personal conclusion that it was the work rork of mr hay so all the time that the latter was his guest he burned to ask him did you write the bread Winners 9 yet he did not know ex acely bow how to do this without seeming to infringe a little upon the rules of hospitality but upon the list jut day of mr hay s visit his bosi host took him for a long ride in the suburbs of buffalo and when they were far out in jn the coun try said to him I 1 am going to be discourteous enough to ask you one question and first of all to ask you ou it jf you will an I 1 awer any question I 1 put to you 1 mr hay laughed heartily and as he turned his face towards his corn com panion his eyes twinkled merrily then he said I 1 will answer any question you are likely to put to me except one you think I 1 am going to ask you if you wrote the bread winners queried his companion my experience would justify that cusp suspicion clon laughed mr hay N well ell you are mistaken I 1 am not going to ask you that question was the good natured retort well then cried mr hay go ahead and put your question ill answer it my que tion is this did jou ou read he the proofs pi goofs of tle bread winners again mr hay lay laughed heartily then finally be said that a a fair question ill an iwer er it I 1 did id read the proofs so I 1 suspected exultantly shout ed d our friend and ill never need gain again to ask anybody who wrote abe read vi inderb Copy rigi t 1010 1910 by E I 1 edwards |