Convention in 1899. The first payment was made on February 2, 1903.

Perhaps it is not amiss to quote here a small portion of the speech
delivered in Washington, D. C. by Hon. Joseph Scott of Los Angeles on
the occasion of a banquet following the unveiling ceremonies of the
memorial erected in honor of Christopher Columbus by Act of Congress.
Among the speakers present at the banquet were Ex-President William Taft
(then president), Cardinal Gibbons, Speaker Champ Clark, Ex-speaker
Joseph Cannon, Congressman Underwood, Judge Victor Dowling of the
Supreme Court of New York and many other notable men of the nation.

"It affords me unbounded pleasure to have an opportunity to deliver an
expression, feeble though it be, of the sentiments of the Knights of
Columbus of the great West, and particularly of California, regarding
the significance of this great day. Mr. John Barrett of the Pan-American
Union has already given you food for sober thought in the parallel he
has drawn of the marvelous activity and resourcefulness of the
Latin-American republics. Possibly I may be permitted at this time to
inject a suggestion that, despite the remarks of the previous speaker
about Boston as the modern Athens and the seat of universal learning,
"Modern Athens" has nothing in common with the memories aroused by
contemplation of the events which we celebrate today. It may be well to
tell our friends from New England that before the so-called Anglo-Saxon
had set foot as a colonist upon the American soil, the followers of
Columbus had penetrated into the heart of Kansas and gone down as far as
Buenos Ayres. I want to lay stress upon the fact that we have not noted
too emphatically today that it was the great Spanish race, with its
strong and sterling faith, which accomplished this wonderful mission of
civilization. Too long have we endured the stress of so-called history
written by Prescott and others, some of whom ought to have been put in