est one
definite thing. Why might not the notice of each monthly meeting state
the items of unfinished business that may come up, and also give notice,
so far as possible, of the matters to be submitted by the Executive
Committee? The attendance at our meetings would be better, I am sure, if
men knew when matters of interest to them were to be discussed.

Glancing towards our future, I seem to see the day when Judge Fancher
shall sit in a telephone exchange and receive his testimony in ghastly
whispers from unseen mouths when the president of the Chamber shall
take the ayes and nays of a meeting whose component parts are sitting in
a thousand counting rooms in this city. But I never can seem to see the
day when the annual dinner can be conducted by the members except
face-to-face. At all events, we can wait till Edison perfects the
electric light, before asking him to make a dinner available with
Delmonico fifteen miles away. [Laughter and cheers.]

In 1861 the Pacific Mail Steamship Line was petitioned for, or, at
least, a mail line on the Pacific, between the United States and the
Orient world, and that, while the nation was engaged in a mighty
struggle for its life. The Pacific Mail Line to the East, the Pacific
Railroad across the continent, the superb government buildings at
Washington,--all constructed, in whole or in part, while the nation
seemed to be strained to its utmost by the demands of a civil
war,--these things are to me among the mightiest evidences of the faith
of the men of those days who, while the present seemed to be surcharged
with duties and burdens for their hands, still laid hold upon the future
with such powerful grasp. Are we, of the Chamber of Commerce, worthy of
the blessings that have come down to us out of the glorious past? If we
wish to be, we must live partly for the future as did they.

We need a building of our own, commodious, and in some way proportioned
to the great interests we represent. We need a fire-proof building for
the safe-keeping of our records. Once already in our history our seal
has been returned to us from an obscure shop in London. Our Charter was
rescued from an old trunk in the Walton house on Pearl Street, and our
historic paintings were only discovered after long loss, as the result
of the fire of 1835. The Chamber of Commerce is standing now at the door
of Congress, and asks them to sell at public auction the site of the old
Post Office, for not less than thre