Address at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this expression of welcome and good will. I have been oppressed since I have come into this magnificent structure with the thought that you had gathered here in part to hear me, and that I have nothing to address to you worthy of such a magnificent presence. I am told that my distinguished predecessor, under the inspiration of an audience like this, delivered an address in the nature of a sermon upward of two hours in length. Now, he had the capacity; he had the spirit; and he had the mission to make such a preachment, of moral force and inspiration. He knew how to appeal to the best that is in a man and a woman, and arouse them to uplift themselves to higher standards and higher ideals. But it has not been given to me to exercise that great influence which was his and which shone forth from him as he stood before men upon a platform. Yet I have felt that on this Sunday morning it was necessary for me to make such effort as I could to follow him in something that may sound a bit like a sermon. And as sermons are begun with the quotation of a text, having more or less relation to what follows it, I am going to give you the text from Proverbs: "A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger."

It is a text that has enforced itself upon my mind during the last ten years with especial emphasis, because I have come into contact with Oriental peoples and with those descended from the Latin races of Europe, and I have had a chance to compare their views of life and their methods of speech, and their social conventions and amenities with those of the Anglo Saxon race. We Anglo Saxons are, we admit, a great race. We have accomplished wonders in hammering out against odds that seemed insurmountable the principles of civil liberty and popular government and making them practical and showing to the world their benefits. But in so doing, and in the course of our life, it seems to me we have ignored some things that our fellows of Southern climes have studied and made much of; and those are the forms of speech and the method of every-day treatment between themselves and others. An Oriental will tell you in all the various beautiful forms, of his anxiety for your health, his respect for your character, his almost love of you and your family, and he will put you in a good humor with him and with the world, and he will not expect exactly that you take him literally but he will hope that you will understand that he has good will toward you, as you have toward him. Now that, to our Anglo Saxon nature, seems at first hypocritical, when probably you think, and perhaps rightly, that he does not care much about you at any rate, but he understands and hopes that you understand that what he means to do is to make life more agreeable to you and life more agreeable to him, to lubricate, so to speak, the wheels of society, and to make things move more smoothly without jarring and jolting the nerves of either side. At first that seems superficial to us, who prefer "No" and "Yes," and abrupt methods and the communication in the shortest and curtest sentences. But, my friends, we have much to learn from people of that kind, of courtesy and politeness.

The truth is that a man's life in his family, with his wife, with his children, with his mother, with his neighbors, is not made up of grandstand plays and defiance of the elements and all that sort of thing. It is made up of a series of little acts, and those little acts and little self-restraints are what go to make up the man's character. I agree that there are men, and many of them, I hope, who are a great deal better than they seem to be in their families and to their wives and to their children and to their neighbors, and that when exigencies arise they do betray and show forth elements of strength of character that ought to commend them to their fellow citizens and their families. But it does seem as if they were depriving their families and their neighbors of something in their not living up to that standard all the time in little things as well as in big things; and the truth is that if we yield to negligence in the little things, if we yield to the momentary desire to be lazy and not attentive, and not courteous to every one, so as to make every one feel as comfortable as possible during the day, we are going to cut down that higher character that we assume to have under greater exigencies when we are showing forth its strength. And so I say that our friends of the Southern climes and our Oriental friends have touched a point in philosophy, the philosophy of life, that we may well learn from them, and introduce into our lives more courtesy and more politeness—more real, genuine desire to make everybody happy by the little things of life, which after all constitute nearly all there is in life.

I don't for a moment decry the necessity at times for speaking out and speaking out with all the emphasis possible, but what I am urging upon you, and what I have seen in other countries with the advantage of having had an opportunity to see both civilizations, is the added happiness that comes to the whole human race when each member of it in a small but effective way tries to make each other member whom he happens to meet happy for the moment, for life is made up of moments and that contributes to the happiness of all.

Now, another corollary from the text which I would like to draw, is that we ought to ascribe to our neighbors and to those with whom we come in contact, or with respect to whose action we have to express an opinion—we ought to ascribe as high motives as we can. We ought to avoid this acrimonious discussion, that consigns everybody who is opposed to our view to perdition, and to having the most corrupt motives, and that ascribes to those who stand with us only the purest. Life is too valuable to waste in anger and hatred, and the charging and denunciation of our fellowmen when they don't deserve it.

Now, there are to me some things as full of humor as possible. Just within the recent three or four months we have had an illustration. You know something about the pure-food law which has been passed for the purpose of saving the public from food that will injure the health, or from deceiving the public by giving to it in a form that does deceive something for consumption as food. Well, there has arisen in this reform a discussion over—what? You don't know what it is, and I don't know what it is, but for lack of more definite information we will call it benzoate of soda. Now that question has been submitted to experts. Some experts have said that it was deleterious when used in connection with food, and other experts have said that it was harmless, but if you read the discussions you will think that benzoate of soda is a moral line and that any who take their place on one side of it are doomed to hopeless corruption and those on the other side are carrying on a cause of the highest morality. I don't mean to say that the pure-food law is not one of the most important laws on the Federal statute books—and it ought to be. But what I do mean to say is that in its enforcement and in viewing its construction, we must assume that where men differ they differ honestly unless a corrupt motive can be shown, and that while it may be necessary or useful for the public press to encourage the idea that somebody is being moved by corrupt motives, in order to make the headlines a little more salacious, and attractive, and increase the circulation of the paper, it is not necessary for the happiness of the people that it be thought that that question presents a great moral issue which is going to divide men between the bad and the good. We will reach a proper solution some time. It will probably be found, when the differences are examined closely, that those who oppose each other do not stand so far apart.

Another subject that is making a great deal of trouble is the question of what is whiskey, and I have that subject on my hands now. I get letter after letter indicating that if I decide that whiskey is one thing, the whole pure-food law might just as well be abolished, and that I will yield to an element in the community that ought to be condemned and that ought to have no right to live here anyhow. It puts a man in rather an embarrassing situation when the question is really one of fact and law, mixed together, largely one of fact, and one in which I say in passing I have no expert knowledge.

The truth is, my friends, this matter of hatred and resentment which accompanies the attributing of a bad motive to those who differ with you is a waste of nervous strength, of time, of worry, without accomplishing one single good thing. I don't know how it has been with you, but it has happened time and time again with me that some man has done something that I did not like which I thought had a personal bearing, and that I have said in my heart, times will change and I will get even with that gentleman. I don't profess to be free from those feelings at all. But it has frequently happened, I may say generally, that the time did come when I could get even with that man, and when that time came, it seemed to me that I would demean myself and that it would show me no man at all if I took advantage of the opportunity.

Now I am going to tell you a story that interested me greatly when it was told to me, and that I can make applicable to this sermon, by the reason for its introduction and its telling. When I was Solicitor-General, it became my duty, in company with the Attorney-General, to call upon each of the Justices of the Supreme Court in Washington; and among those on the Bench at that time was that distinguished statesman, that great orator, and that most excellent judge, Mr. Justice Lamar of Mississippi. As you know, he was on the other side supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War. It happened that we found him the night of our visit in a most talkative and communicative mood, and when in that mood he was as charming a man as I have ever met. Something arose which led him to say a number of things along the line that I have followed in what I have said to you—that early in life he rather cherished resentments and hatreds, and he thought it was an evidence of great strength of character if only he could remember them a long time; but as he had grown older, as God had seemed to be better to him, as the years had grown mellow, and as he had come to love every one of his race, with real affection and interest, he had seen the utter lack of wisdom in allowing his time and mind and nerves to be taken up in cherishing those unworthy thoughts. "Well," I said, "Mr. Justice Lamar, you seem to have had some experience. Perhaps you can say what has led you to this." "Well," he said, "there are a good many instances, but I can give you one. I was the agent of the Confederacy in visiting England to secure the recognition of our belligerency during the Civil War. Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell were Ambassadors really but I was the active agent, and a resolution had been introduced in the lower house of Parliament, the House of Commons, recognizing the belligerency and, I am not sure but the independence of the Confederacy. Our great friend was a member of Parliament named Mr. Roebuck, and walking on the Thames embankment the day before the resolution was to be discussed in the House, he expressed his great confidence in the success of our side and in the passage of the resolution; and I said to him, ‘Yes, Mr. Roebuck, I hope that is true, but every once in a while there comes over me the fear that the House will be carried off its feet by the eloquence of John Bright.' ‘Oh,' said Mr. Roebuck, ‘Mr. Bright is a great orator for a set occasion, but in a debate I have measured swords with him myself, and I may say I didn't come off second best. Or, to change the metaphor, it was a case of the swordfish and the whale.' I was not entirely satisfied," continued the Justice, "but with hopefulness I attended the House of Commons the next morning and had as my company Mr. Charles Dickens, the novelist. Seated just beyond Mr. Dickens was a gentleman of the most distinguished appearance, whose face I had never seen before in the flesh but whom I soon recognized as the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, who had come over to England to defend the Northern cause. We three sat there and listened to the debate; there was first an address by Sir Roundell Palmer, the Attorney-General, who defended the resolution; then Mr. Gladstone, who did not support the resolution, although he expressed great sympathy with the Southern Confederacy."

And so Mr. Justice Lamar went on describing one speaker and another. He loved oratory; he could repeat what he had heard, and I am sorry I can not repeat it to you. But finally said he, "Mr. Roebuck arose and proceeded to attack the North, its motives in assuming to be interested in the freeing of the slaves, its greed; its character as nothing but a commercial people," and so on and so on. To use Mr. Justice Lamar's expression, "He did give it to you fellows in a way that I very much enjoyed and I could not help, every time that he made a point and sent it home, looking around Mr. Dickens to see how Mr. Beecher took it."

"Well," the Justice said, "the debate went on and the hour for dinner approached, and I was hoping that the debate was over, because it seemed clearly with us and that no other prominent personage would take part, when I heard a voice like an organ note, a voice of volume and sweetness, the like of which I had never heard before and never have heard since, and I followed the note to the lips of the speaker. When I saw the speaker I saw that the whale was in the fight, and that John Bright had risen to meet the occasion. And bitter as I was on the subject, full as I was of the wrongs of the South and the righteousness of our cause, I could not but appreciate the strength of his sentences and the greatness of his oratory, and, to complete my humiliation and disappointment, every time in a glowing period that he drove home what he called the iniquity of slavery and the iniquity of our cause, Mr. Beecher leaned around Mr. Dickens to see how I took it.

"Now," said Justice Lamar, "from that moment, I hated Mr. Beecher, but subsequently in Mr. Beecher's life, when he became subjected to charges and a great strain and a trial that developed the real sweetness of his character and the grandeur and force of what he was as a man, I lost all that feeling. I did not rejoice in the trials that he had, but I came personally to know him and to recognize in that instance, as in many others, the utter fatuity, the utter uselessness of cherishing a personal feeling, a personal hatred beyond the moment when you can suppress it."

And so, my friends, what I am urging is less acrimony in public discussion—more charity with respect to each other as to what moves each man to do what he does do—and that you do not charge dishonesty and corruption until you have a real reason for doing so. I am the last man to pardon or mitigate wrongs against the public or against the individual. I believe, and I regret to say it, that throughout this country the administration of the criminal law and the prosecution of crime is a disgrace to our civilization; but it is one thing to prosecute a criminal when you have evidence and it is another thing to ascribe motives to the acts of men when you haven't any evidence and are just relying on your imagination in respect to what you infer.

My friends, I can not in the presence of so great an audience as this, an audience that inspires one with higher thought of country and patriotism, fail to refer to the depth of feeling that has been awakened in me, of gratitude for your welcome, of an appreciation of the basis of that welcome which is loyalty to your flag and country. I understand that in the great office of the President the personality of the man who fills it for the time sinks, and that the office typifies the nation, so that all people of whatever party ought to feel that toward the man who for the time being holds the office they are manifesting a respect for the nation for which they live and for which they would be willing to die.

The advantage of such a trip as that I am taking is of course that I come into personal touch with the people, and I am thus enabled to learn a great many things which otherwise I should be ignorant of, and on the other hand that they come into personal touch with me and find out the kind of personality in a way—very superficially—that they have selected through good fortune or misfortune temporarily to preside over them. A man of an inquiring mind said to me the other day, "It is quite true that you are speaking a good deal so that the people may learn something about your views, but how do you, if you do all the talking, learn anything about what the people think?" Well, stated simply, that would seem to be unanswerable unless you have a knowledge of the people whom I meet along the way, of the persons with whom I talk and of the opportunities for observation that are presented in so long a trip as that of 13,000 miles. If a man can not absorb a good deal from the newspapers, from talks along the way, of what is going on in a community, he had better not take a trip. But if he has the ordinary pores in his skin and the ordinary brain tentacles for holding on to things that are in the air, he is apt to get a pretty good knowledge of what is in the atmosphere, what is on the earth, in the communities that he visits. I am not here to justify my coming, because you have been kind enough to be so cordial in your welcome that I do not think it is necessary, and yet I do wish to explain some of the advantages that come from information at first hand and by personal touch, that one who is charged with the responsibility for four years of carrying on the executive department of the government may pick up.

And now, my friends, I say to you again how grateful I am for your cordial welcome, and express to you as sincerely as possible my earnest hope for your further progress and development in order to cap that wonderful advancement and seizure of opportunities that this community displays in its history. I thank you!