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that it was the happy thought of one of the boys here, who knew the street railway men, that every man should have his number, and every man should carry in his pocket a printed list of the delegates and gentlemen visiting here, with the number of each man opposite his name, so that gentlemen from the smaller towns, like Buffalo, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, who got bewildered in a large city like this and went staggering around-(laughter)—could be brought safely home-(laughter); and that when gentlemen from the larger cities, like New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, which are rivals and competitors of St. Louis, happened to step upon a live wire, and fall in the gutter, that a policeman could bring them kindly home, and as they placed them in the arms of their wives, they would rejoice that he was better there, even if a little hurt, than, as so often, to be out all night!

And so, good gentlemen of this Convention, you who are in so many dangers and take so many risks about your power houses and your trolley wires and your banquets, let me make one suggestion to you, and that is this, that you should carry heavy life insurance, so that in case there should be a sudden taking off, your wives may have that solace, consolation and comfort that the good wife had in Iowa, who telegraphed to her folks in Ohio: "James is dead; loss covered by insurance." (Laughter and applause).

But, good ladies, rather than the men, I am so delighted to see you here to-night. Talk about your Murillos and Raphaels, about all the artists of all the world who have placed upon canvas the creations of their fancy and imagination, they cannot vie with God Almighty in the best of his handiwork a good, pure and pretty woman. Gentlemen of this Convention, you talk about your dynamos and your magnetism. Woman is the greatest galvanic battery in the world! Wife and mother, their love is the current that flows all the world round; their hearts the magnet which draws heaven nearer earth! (Applause).

But I must to my subject, else some of you will be saying as the good woman up in Wisconsin did to the young preacher from Boston, who delivered one of those fine metaphysical sermons, for which Boston is noted. After he got through he said to her, “Sister, what did you think of my sermon?" She was one of those stalwart, good common sense women we have out West. She looked at him and said, "Dominie, all I have got to say about your sermon, is, that if your text had the small-pox you would never have catched it." (Applause.) But before I proceed to the subject I am discussing let me say that there is another reason, above all others, why I am here, and that is that this is one of the places in which for the last month I have not heard a discussion of the Silver Question. (Applause.) I have had it in my office, I have had it in my home, and I have had it in church; because last Sunday our preacher was reading chapter IX. of Chronicles II., and along at the twentieth verse he read "And all the drinking vessels of King Solomon were of gold, and all the vessels of the houses of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver." (Applause.) Now, gentlemen, your

applause at that point shows, I am sorry to say, that you have not read the scriptures; for it goes on to say, and that is the point that I was coming to "It was not anything counted of in the days of Solomon." (Applause.) I was just thinking how history repeats itself. (Applause.)

My subject is "The Street Railway in the Courts." It is a sad and solemn subject; it is a case where there is a field of high pressure and a field of low pressure. The field of high pressure is the railroad company's lawyer and his witnesses, and the field of low pressure is the jury. I do not know how it is with other lawyers, but I have tried on that jury the alternating current and the continuous current (laughter), and it seemed to me that they were made of rubber, paraffine or some other substance of high resistance. (Great applause.) Things were uncertain until it came to a verdict, then that is a peculiarity about electricity, the way she will jump sometimes. (Applause.) I have felt then a current of two-hundred volts, low pressure, spring at once in the verdict to twothousand volts, high pressure, and knock me over. (Applause.) It is not a pleasant position to hold, and it is a dangerous position as regards your client. I knew of an Irishman who was on the jury in this city. Some one asked him, “What are you doing, Pat?" He answered, “I am working on the jury, and it is mighty hard work, too." "How is that," he was asked, "I thought it was doing nothing and getting a dollar a day?" He said, "Sometimes it is so; now, for instance, if it is an Irishman and a German, that is easy enough; but look at the case I had to-day, an Irishman against a railroad company, and he had only two witnesses and the railroad company had twelve and swore him clean out of court. I had a hard job, and it took me all day to bring them around, but I did, and we gave the man a verdict for fifteen hundred dollars!" (Applause.)

I have often felt, after the farce of a jury trial in a damage suit, like the old lawyer over at Centralia, Ill., who had been a constable for twentyseven years, but in the whirligig of politics he lost his position, and having been so long about the courts, he concluded he would be a lawyer, and he was admitted. The first case he got was a bill in equity, and it is not necessary to say that he was knocked out at the first round. Thoroughly disgusted, he put the following advertisement in the local paper: "James Johnston, attorney at law, practices before justices of the peace and takes EASY cases in the circuit court." (Laughter.)

Gentlemen, I could go on in this philosophical and metaphysical way until morning, but I dare not. You are waiting in anxious expectation, as I am, for Colonel Lehmann and Major Reedy to address you, and, by the way, that recalls to mind a little point. I heard a child ask his father the other day-" Papa, what is a colonel?" The father answered, "Why, it is any gentleman from south of the Ohio river." (Laughter.) You are waiting in anxious expectation for the toasts of the "Street Railway as a Social Factor," and "The Press." I have been working hard to-day, and am like the child who said its evening prayer-" Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die, if I should die,-Lord, I am awful tired; just as tired as I can be,

and please mayn't I say the rest to-morrow?" and her little head fell upon the pillow, and she was away in dream and wonderland. So, good friends, I am tired, as tired as can be, and no doubt you are tired. Please mayn't I say the rest some other time? (Great Applause.)

TOAST: "THE STREET RAILWAY AS A SOCIAL FACTOR," RESPONDED TO BY MR. FREDERICK W. LEHMANN.

The Toastmaster: I want to say that the gentleman who has just spoken, if he will pardon me for disagreeing with him, is mistaken with reference to the use of the button. It was feared by the Local Committee that some of the visiting gentlemen here from other cities coming to St. Louis might get into some lawyer's office, and the Committee hoped that at least the button would be left.

I wanted to tell a short story about the law before this gentleman spoke, but I was afraid if I did it I would be like. the boy who was kicked by the mule, who said, "I aint as pretty as I was, but I know more." (Laughter.)

Now that he has spoken and I am no longer afraid of him, may I have your permission to tell a short story about the law. A man was indicted for arson in the first degree, and consulting his lawyer he said he had a friend on the jury, who could be fixed for two hundred dollars, and would bring in a verdict in the second degree. The lawyer advised him to adopt the plan, and he would carry out the details. The trial was hotly contested, and the jury was out for seven hours, and a verdict of arson in the second degree was duly rendered. He was remanded for a sentence. In a day or two the friend called at the jail. "You have come for your money?" "I have." "I suppose you had a hard time, didn't you?" "I did. I worked for seven long hours to bring in a verdict of second degree, and I did it, though all but two of the jury were for acquittal." (Laughter.)

I wanted to tell a story about another tombstone, but the President says if I will keep myself above ground for a few minutes he will be obliged to me.

You all know about the lawyer whose name was Strange, and who ordered his tombstone inscription to read, “Here lies an honest lawyer." He said every one who read it

would say, "That's Strange!" "That's Strange!" Curiously, stories run in series. You all know the pie series. A man at dinner on a hot summer day, cast his eye along the table, and said, "Waiter, give me some of that huckleberry pie." The waiter said, waving his towel vigorously over the pie, “That is not huckleberry, sir, that's custard." (Applause.)

Just one more pie story. It occurred up in the north of Maine last season. The gentlemen had no idea that they had dessert, but the spinster waitress said "Pie," and the man said "What kind?" Said the spinster, "Open face, cross-bar and kivered-all apple." (Laughter.)

The fourth toast of the evening now invites us—The Street Railway as a Social Factor-and if I may be permitted, before the gentleman enters upon the discussion of this toast, I want to say that the social factor at our meetings is the genial, courteous supplyman. We love him. When we are at home in our offices we are busy, and he is busy, too; but here he is our delight and our entertainer, and he is a very large half of this Convention. I now have the extreme pleasure of introducing Mr. Frederick W. Lehmann, to respond to the toast, "The Street Railway as a Social Factor."

Mr. Lehmann: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen.—I am constrained to make formal acknowledgment of the receipt of Mr. Galt's manuscript. I have a practice of long standing-to try my speeches upon an audience which is helpless; to recite them to my wife. (Laughter.) I did that with the manuscript sent to me by my friend, Galt, reading it, of course, as my own. The effect was extremely appropriate to this hour of the night. Before I had finished it she was soundly asleep. (Laughter and applause.)

I have been much interested at this meeting of street railway men. I am glad to see the managers comparing notes and striving in every way to improve the methods of the business in which they are engaged. I am employed in the legal department of a street railway company and paid an annual stipend. To me, the perfection of the street railway business means, operation without accident, and earnings enough to pay all salaries.

The street railway is not an old institution. Within living memory, in the first cities of the world, the only way to get about, aside from that by Foot & Walker's line, was by coach or chair. John Ruskin preferred the olden way to the new, as more picturesque and as better adapted to the requirements of art, but the new way commends itself because it ministers to the vital needs of humanity. (Applause).

Agriculture draws men afield. Almost every other industry concentrates men in cities. As the industrial arts were multiplied and diversified, the cities grew; and as they grew in population, the housing of the people became the most serious of our social problems. At the time of the tenth census, the congestion of population in the large cities excited remark as a thing pregnant with evils of every kind, physical as well as moral. What the remedy was to be, no man could foretell. Men must gather together. The introduction of the steam engine as the motive power of most manufactures compelled the concentration of people at one point, and yet, from the social standpoint, it was essential that they should be scattered; because concentration for the purposes of living, meant the tenement house, meant discomfort, dirt, disease and degradation. Politicians and lawgivers grappled with the question, but its ultimate solution came,-as does the solution of nearly every great problem which affects humanity,-through the inventive genius of man. Franklin looked upon the lightning as the enemy of mankind. His investigations and experiments had nothing else in view than to muzzle it and render it harmless. But the genius of this day has improved upon Franklin, and, not content simply to muzzle the lightning, it has put the bridle and the harness upon it, and has made it a beast of burden to the service of man. (Applause).

It was electricity, applied to the movement of street cars, that solved the gravest problem of our city life. The census of 1890 showed that in but a single district in a single city of the United States had there been any increase in the density of the population. In every other district of that city, and in every other city, while the cities themselves had grown beyond example and comparison, the population was less dense, and the problem was on the way to its ultimate solution. No longer people are gathered, by the hundreds and even by the thousands, into tenement houses, but they are carried miles into the suburbs, where they may have the enjoyment of fresh air and of sunlight, and where the trees of the forest may furnish a border to the landscape about them. (Applause).

Notwithstanding the great good accomplished by the street railway, many see in its extension and development under the present system of private ownership, portents of great danger. They are afraid, as they express it, that if the cities don't own the railways, the railways will own the cities. There is, indeed, ground for apprehension in the latest phase the business has assumed. Old Fletcher, of Saltoun, said that if he could write the songs of the people he would not care who wrote their laws. The ambitious men among the old Romans began their careers in the office of Edile, which was charged with the conduct and management of the public amusements; and successful catering to the people in the matter of their sports and games was the surest way of attaining a consulship. Have our railway magnates become infected with political ambition, and are they acting upon the hint of the Scotchman and the example of the Romans? It looks very much like it, because in the last year, not

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