leading you to think that they want to destroy prosperity, it is because they misunderstand you, and you misunderstand them. There is nothing more important to-day, than that, by education and the spread of ideas, such misunderstanding shall be disposed and done away with, and that all Americans shall come to the spirit of popular government in which every American desires the prosperity and the happiness of every other American, [great applause,] and every American naturally feels a trust in all Americans, because they are all his brothers, fellow inheritors of the great system of constitutional law for the preservation of liberty and justice, of the same great traditions, the same noble ideals of human freedom and human opportunity. [Applause.] There is one other essential to the spirit of self government, and that is justice. The manufacturer, the employer of labor, who is unwilling to be just to his workingmen is false to the ideals of his country. [Applause.] The laborer who, in the comparatively new found power of organization, is unjust to his employer is false to those great traditions in which rest the liberty of all labor. [Applause.] The willingness to do justice in a nation to every brother of our common land is the ideal of self government. Further than that, the willingness to do justice as a nation is the true conception of self government. [Renewed applause.] That rude and bumptious willingness to insult and deride, the result of ignorance, is wholly false to the true dignity and the true spirit of popular self government. We are now approaching a question which will test the willingness of the American people to be true to the ideals of self government and show that a democracy can be honorable and just. Sixty odd years ago Great Britain and the United States were owners of a great territory extending from Mexico to the frozen north, each with a great sea coast on the Atlantic and each with a great sea coast on the Pacific. It was of vital importance to both that the age long problem of transit across the Isthmus should be solved; and they went into partnership to support and to stand behind the making of a canal across the Isthmus. They embodied their agreement in what was called the CLAYTON-BULWER Treaty of 1850. Well, time passed. Nothing was done, largely, for a long time, because of the French experiment of canal building; until finally a few years ago that partnership was dissolved, and then a new agreement was made under which Great Britain retired from her position, and signed over to the United States all the rights she had under the partnership agreement, with the provision that the canal, when constructed under the patronage of the United States or by the United States, whichever it might be, should be opened and made neutral upon the same terms that were specified in the original agreement, which were that the ships of Great Britain and the ships of the United States should have exactly the same treatment. Then Panama made to the United States a grant of the use and occupation of a strip of territory across the Isthmus to be used for the construction of a canal in accordance with the terms and stipulations in this treaty with Great Britain. The last session of Congress however passed a law which gives free transit to American ships engaged in coastwise trade when passing between our Atlantic coast and our Pacific coast, while tolls are to be imposed upon British ships passing between British ports on the Atlantic and British ports on the Pacific, and upon all other foreign ships. Now, Great Britain claims that that is a violation of the treaty which we made with her and in accordance with which, by express provisions contained in our grant from Panama, we were to build and open the canal. Congress takes a different view of the construction of the treaty, and it has passed this law which Great Britain says violates it. The question is now, What is to be done about it?" 66 We have a treaty with Great Britain under which we have agreed that all questions arising upon the interpretation of treaties shall be submitted to arbitration; and, while it seems hardly conceiveable, yet there are men who say that we will never arbitrate the question of the construction of that treaty; but I say to you that if we refuse to arbitrate it, we will be in the position of the merchant who is known to all the world to be false to his promises. [Applause and cheers.] With our nearly four thousand millions of foreign trade we will stand in the world of commerce as a merchant false to his word. Among all the people on this earth who hope for better days of righteousness and peace in the future, we will stand, in the light of our multitude of declarations for arbitration and peace, as discredited, dishonored hypocrites; with the fair name of America blackened, with the self-respect of Americans gone, with the influence of America for advance along the pathway of progress and civilization, annulled, dishonored and disgraced. [Applause.] No true American can fail to use his voice and his influence upon this question for his country's honor. [Applause.] We need to think about these deeper things, more important than anything we have been discussing in the campaign. For, if we are right fundamentally, we will solve all the questions. The spirit of a people is everything, the decision of a particular question is nothing, if we are honest and honorable. If we are lovers of liberty and justice, if we are willing to do, as a nation, what we feel bound to do as individuals in our communities, then all the questions we have been discussing will be solved right, and for countless generations to come Americans will still be brothers, as they were in the days of old, leading the world toward happier lives and nobler manhood, toward the realization of the dreams of philosophers and the prophets, for a better and nobler world. [Prolonged applause.] PRESIDENT CLAFLIN.-Our next toast is The Port of New York." When a difficult problem is to be solved, a strong man is needed to solve it. The problems of the Port of New York are many and difficult, and it is well for us that there will be brought to bear upon them the keen intellect and the resolute spirit of His Honor the Mayor. May his health be equal to his great responsibilities. [Ap plause.] ADDRESS BY THE HONORABLE WILLIAM J. GAYNOR, MAYOR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.—I have a notion that probably it will be well for me to-night to confine myself to words of one syllable, or two syllables, at the outside. [Laughter.] If you happen to use a word of three syllables nowadays there are certain newspaper proprietors here who scarcely know what you mean or what you are about. [Applause and laughter.] They rate us very low but that is only because they are conscious of being intellectually low themselves. They have been for a long time here under the delusion that it is necessary in order to get the simplest idea into your skulls-I will say our skulls-that it is necessary for them to use type from two to six inches long and red at that. [Laughter.] Now people of that intellectual calibre have great difficulty over words of three syllables [laughter] and as soon as you use them they make a run on the bookstore for a book they have only heard of lately, namely, the dictionary. [Laughter.] They measure us according to their own intellectual standards; so I will try to-night to not get away from words of one syllable, although I have had to make some notes and put down some figures which may require more than one syllable. I did not want to speak upon this question of the Port of New York. I have ate and slept with it for two years now. One of the many fine administrative acts of Governor Dix was to appoint a State Harbor Commission here to work with the city officials in this matter. He appointed a member of your body, MR. R. A. C. SMITH [applause] and another member of your body MR. CALVIN TOMKINS [applause] whom I appointed Dock Commissioner, and State Engineer BENSEL. [Applause.] You did nothing better among the good things that you have done, Governor Dix, than in the appointing of that commission of men fit for the place; and it did not take them more than a year to bring out a result which coincides with the judg ment of the men in this great body here who have followed this matter, as well as with the judgment of the city officials who have worked with them. I was sent a newspaper article to day-an editorial of course-for me to read, which said that we had simply done nothing at all except to try to make the Secretary of War resort to the temporary expedient of lengthening our docks, and he refused, and now we have just woke up. The fact is we have been almost ever since I have been Mayor working this thing out and now we are on the eve of a complete conclusion, [applause.] as men sitting around in this body well know, who have worked with us from the start. We have come to a conclusion. MR. SMITH said I must speak about it to night, and what I will say I will try to condense into a few words. I wish that he would come here and say it himself, we have been talking about it so much; and you have a just idea of it, you members of this body. What would we do here in this city except for the assistance of men like you? I don't know. With the abuse which we receive, what would we do? What would we have done with the subway, about which we had to stand a year and a half of tirade as thieves and scoundrels and as selling out the city to MR. MORGAN and MR. RYAN and people who did not have a single thing to do with the matter at all? And with the New York Central Railroad matter it has been much the same. But thank God; as MR. ROOT has said, the core of the people of this country is sound. [Applause.] You represent all the people, from the workman up or down which ever way you want to put it; I don't presume to say which way it is. Public sentiment is all right. The thing is to find out public sentiment, MR. ROOT. If these newspapers to which I have alluded, represented public sentiment, then there would be an overwhelming sentiment in this country that 99 per cent. of our business interests ought to be hung, drawn, and quartered. That is what they taught. One editor himself, or the proprietor, is worth eighty millions of dollars, and I don't know whether he wanted his fortune to meet that fate or not, but he seemed to be satisfied if the fortunes of other people met that fate, rich or poor. Then came along an election, and the candidate who did the most by lawsuit and otherwise, to disintegrate and break up the great business concerns of the country was the worst beaten man of all when the polls were closed. The man who did the next most in the same direction was the second worst beaten man. [Laughter.] And the man who was triumphantly elected was chosen from a State where all the trusts are born, and continue to sleep and take breakfast all their lives. So there, MR. Roor, is public sentiment for you. [Applause.] Now New York is a great port. We have many people here all the time making, not a comparison, but a contrast, between this port and European ports with the contrast unfavorable to our port; and yet for depth of water, for sea room, for mileage of water front, being between five hundred and six hundred miles, it is not equalled on the face of this earth, unless at San Francisco, may be, or at some of the Asiatic places, but certainly not by any place in Europe. It is a a common thing now, especially since this question of longer docks came up, for people here in the city to tell me how much better the docks of Liverpool and of London are. Ours are incomparably better. Natural advantages make them better. The Liverpool docks are a makeshift and wholly artificial, Many years ago, coming up the Mersey at high tide in the Teutonic, to my great surprise, something happened that never happened to me before. I had always been taken off in a tender, as you have all, but the Teutonic continued at high tide and went into a lock and through a great basin, several times the size of this room, and then through another lock and into another basin, and through another lock and through another basin until I said to myself "Dear me, we are going uptown all together." [Laughter.] The truth was we were uptown. The docks of Liverpool are constructed in the city. And the fall of the tide at Liverpool is from twenty-six to twenty-nine feet in that miserable Mersey. [Laughter.] Some of our travellers want to compare it with the noble Hudson which will float any ship on earth. Built at vast expense are these Liverpool docks, but only built because they had to be built. They were built because the Mersey was not deep enough and on account of the tide, to build out perpendicular docks as we do. All the captains that come in here will tell you we have not only the most convenient but the finest docks for the landing of passengers anywhere in this country or in Europe. I ask any one of you to pick out finer. So that when we come to contrast the docks here with European docks we find no ashamed of them at all. reason to be We have also many people-and I want to call your attention to some figures I have put down-who think that the harbor of New York is falling behind for lack of more facilities, and that Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston are our rivals and getting away with us, according to the speech of the day. Now let us see how much they are getting away from us. Listen, this is for 1912: Foreign commerce of Boston in round numbers $198,000,000. In Baltimore, in round numbers $118,000,000. Philadelphia $154,000,000. New York $1,793,000,000. [Laughter and applause.] Taking 1898 as a basis, the figures I have given for these cities show an increase in Boston of seventeen per cent., a decrease for Baltimore of seven per cent., and an increase for Philadelphia of 75 per cent., which is pretty good, that is for any Philadelphians who are here. I want you to take note of that. But the New York increase is 111 per cent. [Applause.] And yet those morose and despondent people who see evil and decline at both of their elbows, all the time, think that the commerce of New York is going to the dogs. What do you think of these figures? Do they look very bad, MR. REA? You are interested in it. MR. REA and I have spent many a hard day's work together over the subways too. (Vice-President REA of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co.) Now, in regard to the foreign commerce we, generally, in order to make New York big, quote the tonnage. We have the largest tonnage, but I do not know why tonnage should count for so much. That ships of certain tonnage come in and go out is not much, but how much cargo they carry is very much, and here are the figures for that. London, $1,753,000,000. I think I may say that these figures do not include gold exporta tions and importations but merchandise, strictly speaking. I think |