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Full text of "The youthful Franklin; an address delivered at the unveiling of a statue to Benjamin Franklin at the University of Pennsylvania, on June 16, 1914"

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LIBRARY  OF  CONGRESS 


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YOUTHFUL 
FRANKLIN 


YOUTHFUL 
FRANKLIISr 

(^^^^y^n  address  delivered 
at  the  unveiling  of 
a  statue  to  Be^tjamin 
Franklin  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania^ 
on  June  16 ^  1914 

by  ^^ 

JAMES  M.  BECK,  LL.D. 

•  \ 

of  the  Philadelphia  and  New  York  bars 


Printed  at  the  Shop  of 

Franklin  Printing  Company 

Founded  by  Benjamin  Franklin  in  172J 

Philadelphia,  U.  S.  A. 


E3oZ 
.4 


Copyright,  1914 

Franklin  Printing  Company 

Philadelphia 


JAN  16  1915 


>  FOREWORD 

THE  Franklin  Printing  Company, 
successor  to  Benjamin  Franklin, 
printer  and  philosopher,  being  inter- 
ested in  anything  that  pertains  to  the  his- 
tory of  our  founder,  presents  an  address 
by  the  Honorable  James  M.  Beck  at  the 
unveiling  of  the  statue  of  Benjamin 
Franklin,  by  Professor  R.  Tait  McKenzie, 
at  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  June  i6, 
1914.  Mr.  Beck  is  acknowledged  one  of  the 
great  students  of  Franklin,  and  we  feel  that 
this  address  is  of  sufficient  merit  to  warrant 
reproduction  in  permanent  form.  We  are 
glad  to  be  able  to  present  it  to  the  admirers  of 
this  great  American  Printer  in  a  form  which 
we  believe  will  be  worthy  of  preservation. 


Ike 

YOUTHFUL 
FRANKLIN 


Mr.  Provost  and  Gentlemen  of  the  University : 

I  CONGRATULATE  you  on  a  notable  achieve- 
ment. You  have  "builded  better  than  you  knev^r." 
By  this  noble  gift  the  class  of  1904  has  not  only 
attested  its  loyalty  to  Alma  Mater  but  has  given  to 
the  future  sons  of  Penn  a  lasting  lesson  and  a  potent  in- 
spiration. Who  can  number  the  students  of  the  future, 
as  yet  unborn,  who,  standing  where  we  now  stand,  will 
gaze  upon  this  faithful  effigy  of  the  youthful  Franklin 
and,  taking  fresh  courage,  will  press  more  eagerly  to  the 
mark  of  their  high  calling?  Here  we  see  the  youthful 
Franklin  "in  his  habit  as  he  lived."  No  higher  praise 
can  be  given  the  sculptor  than  that  his  work  is  worthy 
of  its  subject.  Does  not  this  Franklin  with  his  staff  in 
one  hand  and  his  meagre  possessions  in  the  other,  with 
uplifted  eyes,  alert,  vigorous  carriage  and  smiling,  reso- 
lute face,  nobly  symbolize  the  youth  of  America,  as  they 
end  their  apprenticeship,  and  bravely  face  on  the  threshold 
of  manhood  the  rude  challenge  of  the  world? 

It  is  true  that  Franklin  was  not  a  college  student. 
His  only  elementary  training  was  the  reading  of  borrowed 
books  by  the  flickering  light  of  a  tallow  dip.  His  only 
college  was  the  printing  shop;  his  graduation  was  flight 
from  harsh  and  intolerable  treatment,  and  his  diploma 
may  have  been  an  advertisement  calling  upon  the  public 
to  apprehend  a  fugitive  apprentice.  As  now  portrayed 
in  lasting  bronze,  he  typifies  not  only  the  unnumbered 
American  boys,  who  have  faced  an  unknown  future  with 
undaunted  resolution  and  proud  elation  of  spirit,  but 
especially  that  sturdy  breed  of  self-made  men,  in  which 


America  has  been  so  productive  and  of  which  Franklin 
was  the  first  and  greatest  example. 

No  ship  ever  brought  so  rich  a  cargo  to  Philadelphia 
as  the  little  sloop  from  Bordentown  which  disembarked 
the  youthful  Franklin  on  Market  Street  wharf  one  hun- 
dred and  ninety  years  ago.  Why  narrate  the  story  of 
that  first  entrance  into  Philadelphia?  The  world  knows 
it  almost  by  heart.  With  his  genius  for  simple  narration 
— worthy  of  Bunyan  or  Defoe — Franklin  has  told  us  how 
he  first  trod  its  streets,  when  with  a  huge  roll  of  bread 
under  each  arm,  and  his  capacious  pockets  stuffed  with 
his  surplus  wardrobe,  he  sought  work  and  opportunity. 
Whether  it  was  the  genius  of  the  narrator,  or  the  dra- 
matic contrast  between  this  humble  beginning  and  those 
later  days  when  he  stood  the  guest  of  honor  at  the  Court 
of  Versailles,  and  shared  the  honors  of  the  Academy 
with  Voltaire,  I  know  not,  but  Franklin's  simple  account 
of  his  entry  into  Philadelphia  has  so  deeply  touched  the 
imagination  of  men  that  it  is  a  household  tale  throughout 
civilization.  Whittington  turning  back  to  London  at  the 
sound  of  Bow-bells,  the  Pilgrim  leaving  the  City  of 
Destruction  and  passing  onward  to  the  Delectable  Moun- 
tains, the  shipwrecked  Crusoe  finding  the  footprints  on 
the  sand,  are  hardly  more  familiar  to  men  of  all  nations 
and  classes  than  the  runaway  apprentice  challenging  des- 
tiny in  Penn's  "green  country  town." 

Probably  few,  if  any,  on  Market  Street  wharf  that 
peaceful  Sunday  morning  gave  more  than  a  passing  glance 
to  the  penniless  youth.  There  was  one  to  greet  him,  in- 
visible to  the  mortal  eyes  but  plainly  visible  to  the  eye  of 
imagination.  Franklin  himself,  albeit  the  most  far-sighted 
of  the  children  of  men,  only  dimly  saw  that  welcoming 
figure.  It  was  the  Spirit  of  the  Illimitable  Future. 
Vaguely  he  may  have  heard  her  greeting: 

"Welcome,  Benjamin  Franklin,  to  the  rare  Band  of 
the  Immortals!  This  day  you  are  making  history.  You 
shall  vindicate  the  simple  faith  of  your  Puritan  father, 


who,  with  the  open  Bible  on  his  lap,  said  to  you  when 
as  a  child  you  stood  at  his  knees: 

'Seest  thou  a  man  diligent  in  his  calling,  he  shall 
stand  before  kings.' 

"You  shall  far  surpass  that  strange  prophecy.  As 
the  unconscious  incarnation  of  an  avenging  democracy  you 
will,  as  you  stand  erect  in  pompous  courts,  represent  a 
mighty  revolt  against  tyranny,  which  will  cost  one  king 
the  better  half  of  his  kingdom  and  another  both  crown 
and  head.  Still  another  monarch  will  refuse  to  meet  you, 
saying  'that  it  was  his  trade  to  reign  and  he  would  not 
endanger  the  craft  by  playing  with  Franklin's  Lightning.' 
A  self-educated  printer,  you  will  found  a  great  University, 
receive  degrees  from  Oxford,  Cambridge,  St.  Andrews, 
Yale  and  Harvard  while  the  learned  societies  of  the  world 
will  crave  the  honor  of  j^our  fellowship.  You  will  capti- 
vate the  imagination  and  win  the  admiration  of  the  world 
for  all  time  by  a  series  of  scientific  experiments  so  noble 
in  conception  and  far  reaching  in  results  as  to  rank  your 
name  with  Copernicus,  Galileo  and  Newton.  A  modern 
CEdipus,  you  will  solve  the  sphinx-like  enigma  of  the  skies 
and  open  to  man  the  infinite  vistas  of  electricity.  You  will 
take  high  rank  in  that  smaller  circle  of  the  myriad-minded 
men  who  have  been  supremely  great  in  many  varying 
activities,  for  when  you  shall  walk  the  Elysian  fields  your 
true  companions  in  immortality  will  be  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
Michel  Angelo,  Francis  Bacon  and  Goethe." 

Even  we  of  this  later  age  can  appreciate  but  im- 
perfectly all  that  the  future  whispered  in  the  ears  of  the 
penniless  boy.  Franklin's  fame  expands  with  the  majestic 
advance  of  America  and  the  ever  widening  boundaries  of 
science  and  thus  baffles  the  imagination. 

I  shall  not  attempt  any  formal  eulogium.  Not  only 
do  the  limitations  of  an  out-door  speech  forbid,  but  the 
subject  defies  adequate  statement  in  any  speech.  Fifteen 
years  ago  I  attempted  at  the  dedication  of  the  Franklin 
statue  on  the  Post  Office  plaza  in  this  city  to  summarize 


in  a  formal  oration  his  stupendous  genius  and  varied 
achievements.  After  speaking  for  a  full  hour  I  had  barely 
scratched  the  surface  of  his  unequalled  career.  In  diplo- 
macy, a  Talleyrand;  in  invention,  an  Edison;  in  philan- 
thropy, a  Wilberforce;  in  science,  a  Newton;  in  phil- 
osophy, an  Erasmus;  in  local  politics,  a  Hans  Sachs;  in 
statecraft,  a  Richelieu;  in  humor,  a  Swift;  in  style,  an 
Addison;  in  the  power  of  narration,  a  Defoe;  in  the 
unequalled  sweep  of  his  versatility  a  Leonardo  da  Vinci. 
What  a  man !  Where  in  history  is  his  equal  in  the  varied 
scope  of  his  talents  and  achievements?  His  closest 
analogue  seems  to  be  Erasmus.  Like  the  great  philoso- 
pher of  Rotterdam,  Franklin  was  the  first  author,  scien- 
tist, humorist  and  philosopher  of  his  time.  Like  Erasmus, 
his  strongest  weapon  was  the  printing  press,  his  fa- 
vorite medium,  humor.  Like  Erasmus,  he  was  almost 
alone  as  the  well-poised  conservative  of  a  revolutionary 
age. 

SuflSce  it  to  say  that  "tried  by  the  arduous  greatness 
of  things  done,"  Franklin  thought  more,  said  more,  wrote 
more  and  did  more  that  was  of  enduring  value  than  any 
man  yet  born  under  American  skies. 

I  fully  appreciate  that  there  are  some  detractors  of 
Franklin — especially  in  this  city — who  refuse  to  recog- 
nize the  inspiring  volume  of  his  life  because  it  contains 
some  errata,  of  which  we  chiefly  know  through  his  own 
open  and  penitent  avowal.  His  morals  were  those  of  his 
age,  no  better,  no  worse.  Are  we  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the 
wholesome  sunshine  of  his  influence,  because  even  this 
mighty  luminary  had  its  spots?  To  a  few  fugitive 
Rabelaisian  writings  and  frankly  avowed  errors  of  youth 
we  oppose  his  consistent  and  life-long  struggle  for  a  use- 
ful and  noble  life.  I  content  myself  by  citing  testimony, 
to  which  Americans  never  can  be  indifferent.  When 
the  great  philosopher  was  lying  on  his  death-bed,  Wash- 
ington thus  wrote  him:  "If  to  be  venerated  for  benevo- 
lence, if  to  be  admired  for  talents,  if  to  be  esteemed  for 


patriotism,  if  to  be  beloved  for  philanthropy  can  gratify 
the  human  mind,  you  must  have  the  present  consolation 
to  know  that  you  have  not  lived  in  vain;  and  I  flatter 
myself  that  it  will  not  be  ranked  among  the  least  grateful 
occurrences  of  your  life  to  be  assured  that  so  long  as  I 
retain  my  memory  you  will  be  recollected  with  respect, 
veneration  and  affection  by  your  sincere  friend,  George 
Washington." 

For  this  reason  this  statue  represents  more  truly  than 
any  other  of  which  I  have  knowledge,  the  spirit  and  his- 
tory of  America.  It  is  the  effigy  of  one  of  the  greatest 
and  most  typical  of  Americans.  As  Thomas  Carlyle  once 
said  on  beholding  a  statue  of  Franklin:  "There  is  the 
true  father  of  all  the  Yankees."  He  was  the  first  great 
product  of  the  American  commonwealth.  His  career, 
unequalled  in  length  and  usefulness,  spanned  the  mighty 
transition  period  from  the  primitive  colonial  era  to  this 
wonder-working  age  of  steam  and  electricity. 

His  famous  predecessors  in  American  history  were 
expatriated  Europeans  and  no  more  Americans  than  Clive 
was  an  Indian  because  he  lived  in  India.  The  navigators 
and  pathfinders  of  our  colonial  period  had  laid  in  the 
unbroken  wilderness  of  the  New  World  the  firm  foun- 
dations of  a  democratic  commonwealth,  whose  basic  prin- 
ciple was  to  be  equality  of  opportunity,  and  it  was  des- 
tined to  give  birth  to  a  finer  breed  of  men,  the  true  gens 
(Uterna,  the  Americans.  Of  this  mighty  race,  Franklin 
was  the  first  fruit.  When  Washington,  an  unknown  lad 
of  sixteen  years,  v/as  surveying  the  Fairfax  estate  and 
before  Hamilton,  Jay,  Warren,  John  Paul  Jones,  Knox 
and  Marshall  were  even  born,  Franklin  had  become  fam- 
ous throughout  the  world  by  his  discovery  of  the  nature 
of  lightning.  He  was  a  mighty  power  in  the  Colonies, 
moulding  the  character,  thoughts  and  aspirations  of  the 
pioneers  by  the  lever  of  his  printing  press,  when  the  elder 
Adams  was  leaving  Harvard,  and  Jefferson,  Hancock, 
Patrick  Henry  and  Richard  Henry  Lee  were  little  chil- 


dren  in  arms.  Long  before  the  fervid  oratory  of  Adams 
and  Patrick  Henry,  Franklin  was  the  recognized  leader 
of  the  colonists.  It  was  as  their  champion  that  he  stood 
at  the  bar  of  the  Commons,  making  the  members  of  that 
body,  as  Edmund  Burke  afterwards  said,  seem  like  a  lot 
of  schoolboys,  and  it  was  in  their  cause  that  he  stood  erect 
in  the  Cockpit  and  met  with  unmoved  countenance  the 
malicious  vituperation  of  Wedderburn.  When  the  Colo- 
nies were  a  discordant  congeries  of  separate  and  jealous 
governments,  he  first  suggested  a  concrete  plan  for  an 
organic  union  at  the  Council  of  Albany  in  1754  and  this 
was  the  true  germ  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

He  was  the  mentor  of  his  countrymen.  He  pre- 
pared them  for  their  later  struggle  with  the  mother  coun- 
try by  inculcating  lessons  of  thrift  and  independence. 
The  homely  and  epigrammatic  wisdom  of  "poor  Rich- 
ard," which  seems  to  us  in  these  days  of  luxury  and 
opulence  so  penny  wise,  was  in  that  day  of  little  wealth 
and  small  beginnings  essential  to  the  well  being  of 
America.  Indeed  Father  Abraham's  advice  to  a  discon- 
tented people  could  be  read  with  profit  even  by  this  gen- 
eration. It  is  still  true  that  while  we  are  sorely  taxed 
by  our  governments,  national  and  local,  we  are  taxed 
twice  as  much  by  our  idleness,  thrice  by  our  pride  and 
fourfold  by  our  follies. 

He  was  then,  as  he  remains  today,  intellectually  the 
greatest  American,  and  this  may  be  said  without  any 
depreciation  of  Washington,  whose  moral  grandeur  has 
justly  given  him  the  first  place  in  our  aflEections  and  whose 
dramatic  struggle  on  the  field  of  battle  appeals  most  to 
our  imagination.  In  the  epic  of  our  independence  Nestor 
must  give  place  to  Agamemnon,  our  "king  of  men."  But 
in  those  larger  considerations,  which  outleap  nationality 
and  have  a  universal  appeal  to  all  races,  classes  and  creeds, 
Franklin  was,  and  still  is,  at  least  intellectually,  the  great- 
est of  Americans. 


10 


Even  in  the  matter  of  purely  patriotic  achievement, 
Franklin's  invaluable  contribution  to  the  cause  of  inde- 
pendence can  be  measured  by  the  fact  that  his  name  alone 
among  all  his  contemporaries  is  to  be  found  upon  the 
four  great  documents  which  made  us  a  free  people,  viz., 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Treaty  of  Alliance 
with  France,  the  Treaty  of  Peace  with  England,  and 
last,  but  not  least,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

To  that  great  document,  which  so  far  has  given  a 
practical  realization  of  the  highest  ideals  of  American 
liberty,  and  which  is  probably  the  greatest  state  document 
yet  penned  by  man,  Franklin's  contribution  was  ines- 
timable. Apart  from  the  compromise  measures  which  he 
proposed,  which  saved  the  Convention  from  disintegrating 
without  its  glorious  result,  it  v»^as  the  potent  power  of 
Franklin's  personality,  with  its  shrewd  union  of  political 
sagacity  and  tactful  savoir  fair,  which  so  reconciled  the 
discordant  members  of  the  convention  that  they  finally 
agreed  to  sign  the  document  for  submission  to  the  people. 

This  was  the  last  and  perhaps  the  most  useful  of  his 
achievements.  Conscious  that,  like  Moses,  he  could  on  ac- 
count of  age  only  behold  the  promised  land  from  afar  and 
not  enter  therein,  it  was  with  the  prescience  of  an  inspired 
prophet  that  at  the  close  of  the  great  convention  he 
pointed  to  the  half  disc  upon  the  speaker's  chair  and  said 
in  substance  that  while  he  had  often  wondered  in  the 
course  of  the  four  months'  deliberations  whether  that 
picture  of  the  sun  represented  it  as  rising  or  setting,  he 
now  knew  that  it  symbolized  "a  rising  sun."  Yes,  it 
has  been  hitherto  an  ascendant  sun  in  the  constellation 
of  the  nations,  and  let  us  pray  God  that  the  darkening 
clouds  of  socialism  and  even  anarchy  are  not  in  our  day 
to  obscure  this  beneficent  luminary  of  civilization. 

Franklin  was  not  only  the  first  and  intellectually  the 
greatest  of  Americans,  but  he  was  also  the  most  typical. 
Both  his  virtues  and  his  failings  were  characteristic  of 
the  American  character  as  it  has  since  developed.     His 


11 


shrewdness,  utilitarianism,  philosophic  good  humor,  poise 
of  judgment,  tolerant  spirit,  democratic  temperament,  in- 
ventive genius,  intellectual  inquisitiveness,  love  of  industry 
and  pride  in  achievement  are  all  characteristically  Amer- 
ican qualities. 

7^he  two  Americans  who  seem  to  me  to  come  most  di- 
rectly from  the  very  heart  of  America,  and  best  typify 
the  average  American  character,  are  Franklin  and  Lincoln. 
Both  unite  in  their  personalities  the  qualities  of  good 
humor,  generous  tolerance,  philosophic  optimism,  intellec- 
tual versatility,  freedom  from  conventionality,  simplicity 
of  ideas,  and  last,  but  not  least,  common  sense.  Franklin, 
like  Lincoln,  was  the  very  genius  of  common  sense.  The 
great  philosopher  was  possibly  more  versatile  than  pro- 
found. Certainly  his  was  a  telescopic,  not  a  microscopic, 
vision.  He  was  wonderfully  clever  and  resourceful,  but 
not  a  master  of  details.  He  resembled  Erasmus  rather 
than  Darwin,  Hans  Sachs  more  than  Goethe. 

He  accomplished  all  he  did  by  his  freedom  from 
intellectual  conventionality  and  his  sustained  and  intelli- 
gent application  of  common  sense  to  the  problems  that 
confronted  him.  That  is  not  only  a  rarer  but  a  higher 
gift  than  many  suspect.  Common  sense  is  the  instinctive 
appreciation  of  the  nice  relation  which  things  bear  to 
each  other,  without  which  the  most  learned  man  may  be, 
like  King  James,  justly  characterized  as  "the  wisest  fool 
in  Christendom."  With  common  sense  a  man,  who  like 
Franklin  has  but  a  meagre  education  and  whose  learning 
has  been  distributed — in  this  day  of  specialization  we 
would  say  dissipated — over  an  almost  infinite  field  of 
thought  may  yet  accomplish  veritable  miracles. 

Oh,  for  a  breath  of  Franklin's  sanity  and  common 
sense  in  this  hysterical  generation,  when  the  whole  world 
seems  topsy  turvy,  when  many  classes  are  in  revolt  against 
the  institutions  which  make  for  stability,  when  women  are 
growing  masculine  in  the  frenzied  and  violent  advocacy 
of  new  privileges  and  men  are  becoming  feminine  in  sub- 


12 


mitting  to  intolerable  wrongs,  when  the  councils  of  men 
are  darkened  with  vain  imaginings  and  legislators,  admin- 
istrators and,  alas!  even  judges  are  fleeing  in  abject  cow- 
ardice before  the  rising  dust  of  an  advancing  windstorm! 
Franklin  had  too  keen  a  sense  of  humor  to  be  swept  away 
by  this  spirit  of  hysteria  and  too  fine  a  sense  of  justice  to 
accept  the  present-day  cowardly  surrender  of  principle 
to  political  expediency.  If  he  had  been  able,  as  he  humor- 
ously hoped,  to  float  in  a  state  of  suspended  animation 
in  a  cask  of  Madeira  for  more  than  a  century  and  then 
revisit  the  scene  of  his  achievements,  what  would  not  be 
to-day  his  amazement,  admiration  and,  we  must  add,  dis- 
gust? The  greatness  of  the  nation,  which  he  had  helped 
to  bring  into  existence,  would  satisfy  even  his  universal 
spirit.  The  growth  of  his  beloved  city  would  delight  him 
beyond  power  of  expression.  The  expansion  of  science 
would  stagger  even  his  comprehension,  but  I  fear  he  would 
have  only  contempt  for  the  petty  politicians  in  city,  state 
and  nation,  who  betray  the  most  sacred  principles  of  lib- 
erty, to  which  he  gave  the  mighty  labors  of  his  life,  to 
gratify  the  base  passions  of  the  mob. 

He  sympathized  with  people  and  especially  with  the 
working  classes,  of  which  he  himself  as  a  printer  was  a 
shining  example,  but  his  ideal  of  the  worker  was  to  work 
and  not  to  idle.  He  would  have  scorned  a  movement, 
whether  by  law  or  otherwise,  which  would  sink  the  in- 
dustrious and  skillful  worker  to  the  level  of  the  idle  and 
the  thriftless,  and  he  would  have  regarded  with  equal 
loathing  the  intellectual  demagogues,  who  play  upon  the 
passions  of  the  masses,  and  the  sordid  grafters,  who  be- 
tray the  great  cause  of  civic  improvement  to  enrich 
themselves. 

He  was  a  man  of  the  people,  simple  in  his  tastes, 
companionable  to  high  and  low  and  with  scant  regard  to 
the  prejudice  of  class — a  cross  indeed  between  the  in- 
tellectual Erasmus  and  the  democratic  Hans  Sachs. 
When  loaded  down  with  honors  received  from  titled  and 


13 


royal  hands,  he  could  still  remember  his  modest  beginning 
and  the  days  of  his  early  married  life,  when  he  was 
clothed  in  homespun  of  his  wife's  spinning.  When  in 
his  later  years  he  had  ceased  for  nearly  forty  years  to  be 
a  printer  by  occupation  and  was  universally  acclaimed 
as  among  the  first,  if  not  the  first  man  of  his  age,  he 
proudly  described  himself  as  "Benjamin  Franklin,  printer, 
of  Philadelphia." 

To  that  city  he  was  as  Prospero  in  the  wondrous 
island  of  Shakespeare's  fancy.  He  was  its  wonder  worker 
and  even  to  this  day  its  noblest  institutions  are  born  of 
his  thaumaturgic  genius.  If  he  could  not,  like  Prospero, 
conjure  "Jove's  lightnings"  and  "call  forth  the  mutinous 
winds  and  twixt  the  green  sea  and  the  azured  vault,  set 
roaring  war,"  he  could  at  least  curb  the  destructive  fury 
of  the  lightning  and  solve  its  baffling  mystery.  His  Ariel 
was  his  swift  intelligence;  his  working  wand,  science; 
his  magic  mantle,  imagination.  In  him  was  that  rarest 
of  combinations,  a  prescient  and  sweeping  imagination 
coupled  with  the  finest  common  sense  and  poise  of  judg- 
ment. 

He  was  a  believer  neither  in  the  simple  nor  the  stren- 
uous, but  in  the  sane  life.  He  not  only  preached  philos- 
ophy, he  practiced  it.     Like   Horatio,  he  was  one  who 

"in  suffering  all  that  suffers  nothing; 
A  man  that  fortune's  buffets  and  rewards 
Hast  ta'en  with  equal  thanks.    And  blest  are  they 
Whose  blood  and  judgment  are  so  well  commingled. 
That  they  are  not  a  pipe  for  Fortune's  finger 
To  sound  what  stop  she  please." 

Franklin  was  also  a  typical  American  in  his  love  of 
work — not  as  a  mere  means  to  an  end,  but  for  the  love 
of  work,  the  joy  of  achievement.  He  was  the  most  useful 
and  industrious  citizen  that  Philadelphia  or  America  has 
ever  known.     His  period  of  public  service,  which  reached 


14 


nearly  seventy  years,  was  unexampled  in  length.  No  bur- 
den seemed  to  be  too  great  for  him,  no  sacrifice  too  severe. 
He  loved  to  do  things.  To  him  the  work-a-day  world 
was  a  glorious  arena  and  he  disdained  to  triumph  sine 
pulvere. 

This  is,  or  at  least  was,  the  American  spirit.  Our 
very  name  implies  it.  The  word  "America,"  or  Italian 
"Amerigo,"  is  derived  by  Humboldt  from  two  Gothic 
words,  "Amal,"  meaning  "work,"  and  "Ric,"  the  root  of 
"to  conquer."  All  conquering  work!  This  was  ever 
Franklin's  ideal.  Even  when  he  seemed  most  idle,  his 
brain  was  germinating  mighty  thoughts.  His  broad  toler- 
ant nature  had  contempt  only  for  the  thoughtless  and  the 
idle.  When  like  Prospero  he  laid  down  his  wand  and 
mantle,  he  could  look  with  just  complacency  upon  the 
mighty  results  of  his  tireless  industry,  a  great  city  vivified, 
a  nation  brought  into  being,  science  expanded,  and  the 
whole  human  race  benefited  because  he  had  lived.  Well 
may  we  paraphrase  that  stone-worker  of  Westminster 
Abbey  and  say: 

"O  rare  Ben  Franklin!" 

But  this  statue  of  Franklin  best  typifies  the  spirit  and 
achievements  of  America  because  it  represents  the  "youth- 
ful Franklin."  In  this  it  is  unique.  The  venerable  and 
patriarchal  Franklin  has  so  powerfully  impressed  the  im.- 
agination  of  man  that  every  public  effigy  of  him,  of  which 
I  have  any  knowledge,  represents  him  in  his  mature  age. 
This,  however,  is  the  Franklin  in  the  "May  morn  of 
youth,"  the  time  which  on  high  authority  is  said  to  be 
"ripe  for  exploits  and  mighty  enterprises."  To  maintain 
a  just  equilibrium  in  society,  the  conservative  judgment  of 
age  is  doubtless  necessary,  but  without  the  radical  spirit, 
the  indomitable  energy  and  courage  of  youth,  the  best  of 
history  had  not  been. 

All  that  Franklin  subsequently  became  was  latent  in 
him  as  he  stood  a  boy  of  seventeen  on  Market  Street 
wharf.      It  was  more   than   merely  latent.     By  tireless 


15 


industry  and  unwearying  study  under  adverse  conditions, 
he  had  prepared  himself  for  his  future  work  in  the  great- 
est of  all  universities,  the  University  of  Gutenberg.  In 
this  age,  when  the  average  boy  seems  to  have  lost  his  love 
of  reading,  unless  we  except  the  ephemeral  newspaper  or 
current  magazine,  it  is  well  to  be  reminded  that  his  won- 
derful career  was  largely  due  not  only  to  his  self-acquired 
\  wealth  of  ideas  but  his  self-taught  and  unequalled  power 
of  expression.  It  is  most  fitting  that  this  Franklin  should 
be  represented  in  the  "kingly  state  of  youth,"  especially 
^  as  it  will  stand  in  the  classic  shades  of  this  historic  uni- 
versity as  an  incentive  to  future  generations  of  young 
Americans. 

When  I  spoke  on  Franklin  fifteen  years  ago  in  this 
city,  I  recalled  that  he  regarded  all  rhetoric  as  mere 
"sounding  brass  and  a  tinkling  cymbal"  unless  it  served 
some  useful  purpose.  I  then  ventured  to  make  several 
suggestions,  of  which  at  least  one  bore  immediate  fruit. 
With  your  indulgence  I  shall  again  refer  to  them. 

I  first  suggested  that  as  Franklin  had  rendered  some 
of  his  greatest  services  to  America  and  to  civilization  in 
the  city  of  Paris  that  a  replica  of  the  Boyle  statue  should 
be  erected  in  that  queenly  city  on  the  Seine  as  a  token  of 
good  will  from  America  to  France.  The  lamented  John 
H.  Harjes  of  Paris  accepted  this  suggestion,  and  it  was 
through  his  generous  gift  that  a  replica  of  Franklin  sits 
in  patriarchal  dignity  in  an  admirable  position  near  the 
Trocadero  and  within  sight  of  Passy,  wherein  he  passed  so 
many  useful  and  happy  years.  May  I  now  suggest  that 
a  replica  of  the  McKenzie  statue  could  be  fittingly  given 
by  this  famous  University,  especially  at  this  time  when  we 
are  celebrating  the  centenary  of  peace  between  England 
and  America,  to  the  city  of  London  to  commemorate  the 
fact  that  in  that  great  metropolis  Franklin  also  worked 
for  a  time  as  a  journeyman  printer  and  later  rendered 
distinguished  services  as  the  agent  of  the  Colonies. 

I  next  suggested  that  the  sacred  remains  of  Franklin 


16 


and  his  wife,  now  in  a  neglected  cemetery  which  must 
some  day  yield  to  the  needs  of  modern  improvement, 
should  be  reverently  exhumed  and  given  more  fitting 
sepulture.  Would  it  not  be  most  in  keeping  with  Frank- 
lin's ideals  and  character  to  give  his  remains  a  final  rest- 
ing-place within  this  great  institution  whose  proudest 
boast  is  that  it  is  the  University  of  Franklin? 

Finally,  I  urged  that  the  truest  monument  to  Frank- 
lin should  be  Philadelphia  itself,  and  especially  the  great 
institutions  which  Franklin  founded,  of  which  this  Uni- 
versity is  beyond  question  the  greatest.  He  loved  this 
city  with  a  consuming  love.  It  was  not  the  place  of  his 
birth,  but  it  was  the  city  in  which  most  of  his  conscious 
life  was  spent,  and  it  was  the  scene  of  his  greatest  achieve- 
ments. He  was  its  most  useful  citizen.  However  far 
afield  his  public  duties  carried  him,  he  always  regarded 
and  described  himself  as  "Benjamin  Franklin  of  Phila- 
delphia." He  gave  both  to  his  native  and  adopted  cities 
trust  funds,  which  he  asked  each  people  to  accept  as  "a 
testimony  of  my  earnest  desire  to  be  useful  to  them  after 
my  departure."  He  expressed  a  wish  that  the  accumu- 
lations of  his  bequest  should  from  century  to  century  be 
used  for  such  public  buildings  as  would  "make  living  in 
the  town  more  convenient  to  its  people  and  render  it 
more  agreeable  to  its  strangers." 

If  the  present  generation  would  only  have  a  revival 
of  his  spirit  of  individual  initiative  and  enlightened  am- 
bition the  possibilities  of  this  city  and  its  great  University 
are  unlimited. 

In  proportion  to  what  Philadelphia  might  have  been, 
it  is  a  city  of  wasted  opportunities.  With  an  inefficient  and 
archaic  form  of  government,  and  at  times  dominated  by 
the  most  sordid  of  grafters,  it  has  often  reminded  me  of 
Gulliver  bound  down  to  the  earth  by  petty  Lilliputians. 
By  the  Lilliputians  I  mean  the  curbstone  politicians,  who 
too  often  dominate  its  councils.  I  would  apologize  to 
the  people  of  Lilliput  for  the  comparison,  if  that  city 


17 


had  ever  existed,  for  while  they  were  small  in  stature, 
Swift  nowhere  indicates  that  they  were  dishonest.  Our 
professional  politicians  are  the  Lilliputians.  Philadelphia 
and  its  noble  body  of  citizenship  is  the  sleeping  Gulliver, 
who  will  one  day  awake  and  break  the  petty  bonds  which 
check  its  growth.  It  might  have  remained  the  capital 
of  the  nation,  had  not  its  petty  politicians  of  that  day 
sold  the  birthright  of  this  historic  city  of  America  for  a 
mess  of  pottage.  This  opportunity,  which  would  have 
made  it  one  of  the  four  great  capitals  of  the  world,  was 
lost  forever,  as  so  many  other  opportunities  have  since 
been,  by  the  shameful  way  in  which  the  future  of  the 
city  has  at  times  been  sold  for  personal  advantage. 

Time  has  not  ceased  to  run  and  many  centuries  are 
yet  before  this  noble  and  historic  city.  Let  it  but  have 
the  genuine  and  lofty  purposes  of  its  Franklin,  let  it  but 
imitate  his  spirit  of  individual  initiative  and  indomitable 
courage,  let  it  but  have  his  genius  for  concentration,  con- 
solidation and  co-operative  citizenship,  and  it  will  come 
to  pass  that  Philadelphia  will  gain  that  high  rank  among 
the  cities  of  the  world  to  which  it  is  so  clearly  destined. 

When  in  the  infancy  of  Philadelphia  and  shortly 
after  Franklin  first  walked  its  streets,  Thomas  Penn 
visited  his  colony,  the  leading  men  of  the  little  city  pre- 
sented him  a  petition  in  which  they  asked  him  so  to 
foster  education  and  culture  that  Philadelphia  would  be- 
come under  his  enlightened  patronage  "the  Athens  of 
America." 

Thus  early  did  our  forebears  "hitch  their  wagon  to 
a  star."  This  also  was  Franklin's  ideal  for  his  adopted 
city  and  while  he  lived  it  was  indeed  "the  Athens  of 
America."  If  it  has  fallen  away  from  that  high  estate, 
it  is  because  there  have  been  too  few  Franklins  in  succeed- 
ing generations  and  too  much  of  the  dry  rot  of  excessive 
family  pride.  With  the  development  of  our  municipal 
government  we  have  forgotten  the  spirit  of  individual 
initiative  and  have  left  the  noblest  projects  for  the  ad- 


18 


vancement  of  our  city  to  sordid  politicians  rather  than 
to  our  true  intellectual  leaders. 

The  time  is  past  when  Philadelphia  can  become  the 
commercial  metropolis  of  this  country.  What  of  it? 
There  is  something  more  in  life  than  traffic  or  commerce. 
If  Florence  had  only  developed  the  commercial  spirit,  it 
would  not  be  today  a  Mecca  for  all  who  prefer  culture  to 
mere  money-making. 

Men  and  brethren,  is  it  too  much  to  hope  that 
Philadelphia  may  again  have  in  full  measure  the  spirit 
of  her  Franklin  ?  As  a  master  builder  he  was  a  true  Flor- 
entine and  a  worthy  yoke-fellow  of  the  great  Leonardo 
and  Michel  Angelo.  Let  this  generation  be  actuated 
by  his  civic  enterprise  and  it  will  then  build  in  the  lofty 
spirit  of  the  Commune  of  Florence  six  centuries  ago,  when 
it  ordered  its  illustrious  leader,  Arnolfo,  "to  make  a  design 
for  the  renovation  of  Sancta  Reparata  in  a  style  of  mag- 
nificence which  neither  the  industry  nor  power  of  man 
can  surpass,"  giving  as  a  reason  "that  this  Commune 
should  not  engage  in  any  enterprise  unless  its  intention 
be  to  make  the  result  correspond  with  that  noblest  sort  of 
heart  which  is  composed  of  the  united  will  of  many  citi- 
zens." 

Such  was  the  spirit  of  Franklin !  Such  should  be  the 
spirit  of  Philadelphia! 


19 


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