[Address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1914.]


MR. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:

We are assembled to celebrate the one hundred and thirty-eighth
anniversary of the birth of the United States. I suppose that we can
more vividly realize the circumstances of that birth standing on this
historic spot than it would be possible to realize them anywhere else.
The Declaration of Independence was written in Philadelphia; it was
adopted in this historic building by which we stand. I have just had the
privilege of sitting in the chair of the great man who presided over the
deliberations of those who gave the declaration to the world. My hand
rests at this moment upon the table upon which the declaration was
signed. We can feel that we are almost in the visible and tangible
presence of a great historic transaction.

Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence or attended with
close comprehension to the real character of it when you have heard it
read? If you have, you will know that it is not a Fourth of July
oration. The Declaration of Independence was a document preliminary to
war. It was a vital piece of practical business, not a piece of
rhetoric; and if you will pass beyond those preliminary passages which
we are accustomed to quote about the rights of men and read into the
heart of the document you will see that it is very express and detailed,
that it consists of a series of definite specifications concerning
actual public business of the day. Not the business of our day, for the
matter with which it deals is past, but the business of that first
revolution by which the Nation was set up, the business of 1776. Its
general statements, its general declarations cannot mean anything to us