h knows
its own birthday. Woven of the stoutest fibres of other lands, nurtured
by a commingling of the best blood of other races, America has now cast
off the swaddling-clothes of infancy, and stands forth erect, clothed in
robes of majesty and power, in which the God who made her intends that
she shall henceforth tread the earth; and to-day she may be seen moving
down the great highways of history, teaching by example; moving at the
head of the procession of the world's events; marching in the van of
civilized and christianized liberty, her manifest destiny to light the
torch of liberty till it illumines the entire pathway of the world, and
till human freedom and human rights become the common heritage of
mankind. [Applause.]

* * * * *

TRIBUTE TO GENERAL GRANT

[Speech of Horace Porter at the banquet of the Army of the
Tennessee, upon the occasion of the inauguration of the Grant
Equestrian Statue in Chicago, October 8, 1891.]

MR. CHAIRMAN:--When a man from the armies of the East finds himself in
the presence of men of the armies of the West, he feels that he cannot
strike their gait. He can only look at them wistfully and say, in the
words of Charles II, "I always admired virtue, but I never could imitate
it." [Laughter.] If I do not in the course of my remarks succeed in
seeing each one of you, it will be because the formation of the Army of
the Tennessee to-night is like its formation in the field, when it won
its matchless victories, the heavy columns in the centre. [An allusion
to the large columns in the room.] [Laughter.]

Almost all the conspicuous characters in history have risen to
prominence by gradual steps, but Ulysses S. Grant seemed to come before
the people with a sudden bound. Almost the first sight they caught of
him was in the flashes of his guns, and the blaze of his camp-fires,
those wintry days and nights in front of Donelson. From that hour until
the closing triumph at Appomattox he was the leader whose name was the
harbinger of victory. From the final sheath of his sword until the
tragedy on Mount McGregor he was the chief citizen of the republic and
the great central figure of the world. [Applause.] The story of his life
savors more of romance than reality. It is more like a fabled tale of
ancient days than the history of an American citizen of the nineteenth
century. As light and shade produce the most attractive effects in a
pictur