A mighty duty, sir, and a mighty inspiration impels every one of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whatever divides. We, sir, are Americans—and we fight for human liberty. The uplifting force of the American idea is under every throne on earth. France, Brazil—these are our victories. To redeem the earth from kingcraft and oppression—this is our mission. And we shall not fail. God has sown in our soil the seed of his millennial harvest, and he will not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until his full and perfect day has come. Our history, sir, has been a constant and expanding miracle from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown all the way—aye, even from the hour when, from the voiceless and trackless ocean, a new world rose to the sight of the inspired sailor. As we approach the fourth centennial of that stupendous day—when the old world will come to marvel and to learn, amid our gathered treasures—let us resolve to crown the miracles of our past with the spectacle of a Republic compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of love—loving from the lakes to the Gulf—the wounds of war healed in every heart as on every hill—serene and resplendent at the summit of human achievement and earthly glory—blazing out the path, and making clear the way up which all the nations of the earth must come in God’s appointed time! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BEFORE THE BAY STATE CLUB. ------- DURING MR. GRADY’S VISIT TO BOSTON, IN 1889, HE WAS A GUEST OF THE BAY STATE CLUB, BEFORE WHOM HE DELIVERED THE FOLLOWING SPEECH: MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN: I am confident you will not expect a speech from me this afternoon, especially as my voice is in such a condition that I can hardly talk. I am free to say that it is not a lack of ability to talk, because I am a talker by inheritance. My father was an Irishman, my mother was a woman; both talked. I came by it honestly. I don’t know how I could take up any discussion here on any topic apart from the incidents of the past two days. I saw this morning Plymouth Rock. I was pulled up on top of it and was told to make a speech. It reminded me of an old friend of mind, Judge Dooley, of Georgia, who was a very provoking fellow and was always getting challenged to duels, and never fighting them. He always got out of it by being smarter than the other fellow. One day he went out to fight a man with one leg, and he insisted on bringing along a bee gum and sticking one leg into it so that he would have no more flesh exposed than his antagonist. On the occasion I am thinking of, however, he went out to fight with a man who had St. Vitus’s dance, and the fellow stood before him holding the pistol cocked and primed, his hand shaking. The judge went quietly and got a forked stick and stuck it up in front of him. “What’s that for?” said the man.