gratulate our friends from abroad, who do not understand our
language, upon the very great privilege they enjoy here to-night, a
privilege that is not enjoyed by Americans or by Englishmen who come
among us. It is the rare and precious privilege at an American banquet
of not being expected to pay the slightest attention to the remarks of
the after-dinner speakers. [Laughter.] If there is one thing I feel I
can enjoy more than another, it is standing upon firm land and speaking
to those whose life is on the sea, to these "toilers of the deep." There
is in this a sort of poetic justice, a sentimental retribution; for on
their element I am never able to stand up, and, owing to certain
gastronomic uncertainties, my feelings on that element are just the
reverse of those I experience at the present moment. For in the agonies
of a storm I have so much on my mind that I have nothing whatever on my
stomach. But after this feast to-night I have so much on my stomach that
I fear I have nothing whatever on my mind. And when I next go to sea I
want to go as the great statue of Liberty: first being taken all apart
with the pieces carefully stored amidships. [Laughter.]

While they were building the statue in France, we were preparing slowly
for the pedestal. You cannot hurry constructions of this kind; they must
have time to settle. We long ago prepared the stones for that pedestal,
and we first secured the services of the most useful, most precious
stone of all--the Pasha from Egypt. [Laughter.] We felt that his
services in Egypt had particularly fitted him for this task. There is a
popular belief in this country, which I have never once heard
contradicted, that he took a prominent part in laying the foundations of
the great Pyramids, that he assisted in placing the Egyptian Sphinx in
position, and that he even had something to do with Cleopatra's Needle.
[Laughter.]

When Napoleon was in Egypt he said to his people: "Forty centuries are
looking down upon you." We say to General Stone, as he stands upon that
pedestal: "Fifty-five millions of people are looking up to you! and some
of them have contributed to the fund." [Laughter.] When we read of the
size of that statue, we were troubled, particularly when we saw the
gigantic dimensions of the Goddess's nose, but our minds were relieved
when we found that that nose was to face southward, and not in the
direction of Hunter's Point. [Laughter and applause.]

_Monsieur le President_:-