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the Cabinet were allowed the floor their very presence would suggest, in the possibility of reply, moderation in discussing the Administration, which does not now at all times prevail.

The strongest reason for advocating this change, however, is that the influence that the Executive shall have in shaping legislation shall be more in harmony with the responsibility that the people hold him to in respect to it. He is the head of the party that elected him, and as such, if Congress is controlled by the same political party, as it generally is, he is looked to to shape the Congressional policy and to secure the passage of the statutes which the party platform has promised. Now, with such a burden on him, he ought to have a greater means of bringing about what he wishes in the character of the legislation to be considered by Congress, and greater powers of persuasion to secure the adoption of such legislation than those which the mere right to send messages and the mere opportunity of personal consultation with leading members of the House and Senate give him.

I doubt not that the presence of able Cabinet officers on the floor of each house would give greater harmony of plan for the conduct of public business in both houses, and would secure much more valuable legislation in accordance with party plans than we have now. On the other hand, the system would enable Congress to come closer to the Executive, and pry more effectively into each act and compel a disclosure of the reasons justifying it immediately at the time of the act, and to keep the public more quickly advised by the direct questions of hostile critics which must be answered, of the progress of business under Executive auspices.

Of course, this is not the complete English system, because it does not give to the Cabinet the power to lead and control legislative action, as the British Government may in Parliament. But it combines so much of that which is valuable, and as it can be done by a mere act of Congress, I think it ought to be tried.

One of the results of my observation in the Presidency is that the position is not a place to be enjoyed by a sensitive man. Laurence Sterne said, "The Lord tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." The experience in the Presidency toughens the hide of the occupant so as to enable him to resist the stings of criticism directed against him from the time he takes office until he lays it down.

I don't know that this evil has been any greater in this administration than in a previous administration. All I know is that it was my first experience and it seemed to me as if I had been more greatly tried than most Presidents by such methods.

The result, in some respects, is unfortunate in that after one or two

efforts to meet the unfounded accusations, despair in the matter leads to indifference and, perhaps, to an indifference toward both just and unjust criticism. This condition helps the comfort of the patient, but I doubt if it makes him a better President.

Of course, the reassuring formula that history will right one and will give one his just meed of praise is consolatory, but it is not altogether satisfactory, because the thought suggests itself that the time for remedying the injustice may be postponed until one is gathered to his fathers, and when he is not particularly interested in earthly history or mundane affairs.

I think the period for successful muckraking is gradually drawing to a close. I hope so. The evil of the cruel injustice that has been done to many public men in this regard will certainly show itself in the future, and we must consider that the ebullition in muckraking literature is only one of the temporary excesses of the times, which is curing itself by tiring those whose patronage formed the motive for its beginning and rise.

In so far as those criticisms are just, of course, they ought not to be avoided. In so far as they are based on facts, whether they are just or unjust, they must be taken at their value upon the consideration of the facts. But the query arises in respect to those criticisms and attacks that are made without the slightest reference to the facts, and merely for the purpose of invoking popular opposition and distrust, and with the hope that by constant repetition they can escapę any possible refutation.

The Presidency is a great office to hold. It is a great honor, and it is surrounded with much that makes it full of pleasure and enjoyment for the occupant in spite of its heavy responsibilities and the shining mark that it presents for misrepresentation and false attack.

I consider that the President of the United States is well paid. The salary by no means measures the contribution to his means of living which the generosity of Congress has afforded, and unless it is the policy of Congress to enable him in his four years to save enough money to live in adequate dignity and comfort thereafter, then the salary is all that it ought to be.

Of course, the great and really the only lasting satisfaction that one can have in the administration of the great office of President is the thought that one has done something permanently useful to his fellowcountrymen. The mere enjoyment of the tinsel of office is ephemeral, and unless one can fix one's memory on real progress made through the exercise of Presidential power, there is little real pleasure in the con

templation of the holding of that or any other office, however great its power or dignity or high its position in the minds of men.

I beg you to believe that in spite of the very emphatic verdict by which I leave the office, I cherish only the deepest gratitude to the American people for having given me the honor of having held the office, and I sincerely hope, in looking back over what has been done, that there is enough of progress made to warrant me in the belief that real good has been accomplished, even though I regret that it has not been greater.

My chief regret is my failure to secure from the Senate the ratification of the general arbitration treaties with France and Great Britain. I am sure they would have been great steps toward general world peace. What has actually been done I hope has helped the cause of peace, but ratification would have been a concrete and substantial step. I do not despair of ultimate success. We must hope and work on.

The sustained mental work in the Presidential office is not, I think, so great as is generally supposed. The nervous strain is greater. As it should be, the President has a great many assistants to furnish him data and actually to prepare his letters and his official communications. If he is careful, of course, he corrects and changes these enough to put his own personality into them. His time is very much taken up with social functions, state and otherwise. This is inevitable with the affairs of state, and his actual time for real hard intellectual work is limited. That part of his time which is taken up with the smaller patronage of the office, that is, I mean, the local patronage, the postmasters and collectors, is, in my judgment, wasted, and ought to be removed by putting all the local officers in the classified civil service system, so that it shall be automatic in its operation and the President may not be bothered, and the Congressmen and Senators may not be bothered with that which is supposed to aid politically, but which in the end always operates as a burden to the person upon whom its use is thrust.

I observe that the question of how receptions are to be accorded to those who have business at the White House is now under consideration, and I have been considerably amused at the suggestion that it would be possible to do the public business in the presence of everybody, so that all who are interested might draw near to the Executive Office and stand and see and hear the communications from those who enjoy appointed consultations with the head of the nation.

This matter is always the subject of consideration at the beginning of each administration, and it always settles down to an arrangement which satisfies few people, but which allows those who have the most

important business generally to have the easiest and longest access to the President. A President has just so much time to see people, and if the number of people is very great, as it always is at the beginning of an administration, the amount of time he can give to each is very limited. No matter what is done, it will be certain that somebody's toes are stepped on, and when I am asked what is the proper way of arranging receptions of people under conditions which exist, I am forced to tell the story of a gentleman who lived on Sascatchequarle Creek. He was asked how he spelled the name of the creek, and he said: "Some spells it one way and some spells it another, but in my judgment there are no correct way of spelling it."

And now, my friends, I come to the final question which is of immediate moment to me, and in respect to which I observe some discussion and comment and suggestion in the press of the day, "What are we to do with our ex-Presidents?"

I am not sure Dr. Osler's method of dealing with elderly men would not properly and usefully apply to the treatment of ex-Presidents. The proper and scientific administration of a dose of chloroform or of the fruit of the lotos tree and the reduction of the flesh of the thus quietly departed to ashes in a funeral pyre, to satisfy the wishes of the friends and families, might make a fitting end to the life of one who had held the highest office and at the same time would secure the country from the troublesome fear that the occupant could ever come back.

His record would have been made by one term and his demise in the honorable ceremony I have suggested would relieve the country from the burden of thinking how he is to support himself and his family, would fix his place in history and enable the public to pass on to new men and new measures. I commend this method for consideration.

I observe that our friend, Mr. Bryan, proposes another method of disposing of our ex-Presidents. Mr. Bryan has not exactly the experience of being a President. He has been a "near President" for three times, and possibly that qualifies him as an expert to speak of what we ought to do with our ex-Presidents. He has been very vigorous in this campaign in helping to make me an ex-President, and if I have followed with accuracy his public declarations and his private opinions, he is anxious to perform the office of making my successor an ex-President after one term.

As a Warwick and as a maker of ex-Presidents, I think we should give great and respectful consideration to his suggestion. Instead of ending the ex-Presidential life by chloroform or lotos eating, he proposes that it should expire under the anesthetic effect of the debates of the Senate. He proposes that ex-Presidents should be confined to

the business of sitting in the Senate and listening to the discussions in that body. We may assume that he proposes that the ex-Presidents shall share the burden of the Vice-President as he listens to the soliloquies which the various members of that body pour into "The Congressional Record," while the remainder of the Senators are engaged in more entertaining and less somnolent occupation.

The ex-Presidents are to have seats in the Senate and join in the discussion, but not to vote. Why Mr. Bryan should think it necessary to add to the discussion in the Senate the lucubrations of ex-Presidents, I am at a loss to say. I cannot conceive of any reform in the Senate which does not lead to a limit in their debate.

For many reasons, I object to Mr. Bryan's disposition of ex-Presidents. If I must go and disappear into oblivion, I prefer to go by the chloroform or lotos method. It is pleasanter and it's less drawn out.

But, my friends, I have occupied your time too long in my cursory remarks, the subject of which at times may have seemed too sober and grave for lotos eaters, but as the office of the Presidency is still in my keeping, and as the thought of parting with it is perhaps the most prominent one that figures in my mind, I have ventured to discuss it in accents both grave and gay. I wish to express deep gratitude to you for the honor which you have done me in making me your guest tonight, and I close with a sentiment and a toast to which I most sincerely and cordially ask your unanimous acclaim:

"Health and success to the able, distinguished and patriotic gentleman who is to be the next President of the United States."

§ 51

SPEECH AT BAR DINNER

By Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

(Speech of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, at a banquet in his honor given by the Suffolk Bar Association, Boston, March 7, 1900, upon his elevation to the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.)

GENTLEMEN OF the Suffolk BAR: The kindness of this reception almost unmans me, and it shakes me the more when taken with a kind

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR. Born Boston, Mass., March 8, 1841; graduated from Harvard in 1861; LL.B., in 1866; served three years as a soldier in the Civil War; admitted to the bar in 1867; Instructor in Law, Harvard College, 1870-71; Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, 1882; Associate Justice of Supreme Judicial Court at Massachusetts, 1882-1899; Chief Justice, 1889-92; Associate Justice Supreme Court of United States since December 4, 1902.

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