s,
that it should apply its principles to practical living issues and
questions of the day. And I plead to the lawyers to come out once in
awhile from the technicalities of practice, and from their worship of
cleverness and success, and look to the mission which is laid on them,
namely, to bear witness to justice and righteousness. [Applause.] My
toast would be "Common sense in the Pulpit and a love of righteousness
at the Bar."

JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE

THE PRESS

[Speech of James Jeffrey Roche at the banquet of the Friendly Sons of
St. Patrick, New York City, March 17, 1894. John D. Crimmins presided.
Mr. Roche, as editor of the "Boston Pilot," responded for "The Press."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE FRIENDLY SONS OF ST.
PATRICK:--I am deeply sensible of the honor you have done me in
inviting me to respond to the toast which has just been read.

The virtues of the Press are so many and so self-evident that they
scarcely need a eulogist. Even the newspapers recognize and admit them.
If you had asked a New York journalist to sing the praises of his craft,
his native and professional modesty would have embarrassed his voice. If
you had asked a Chicagoan, the honorable chairman would have been
compelled to resort to cloture before the orator got through. If you had
asked a Philadelphian, he would have been in bed by this hour.

Therefore, you wisely went to the city which not only produces all the
virtues--but puts them up in cans, for export to all the world. We do
not claim to know everything, in Boston--but we do know where to find
it. We have an excellent newspaper press, daily and weekly, and should
either or both ever, by any chance, fail to know anything--past,
present, or to come--we have a Monday Lectureship, beside which the
Oracle of Delphi was a last year's almanac. [Applause.]

I met a man, on the train, yesterday--a New York man (he said he
was)--of very agreeable manners. He told me what his business was, and
when I told him my business in New York, he surprised me by asking:
"What are you going to say to them in your speech that will be real
sassy, and calculated to make all their pet corns ache?" I told him I
did not know what he meant, that of course I should say nothing but the
most pleasant things I could think of; that, in fact, I intended to read
my speech, lest, in the agitation of the moment, I might overlook some
complimentary impromptu little touch. Then he laughed and said: