SARGENT S. PRENTISS (1808-1850), orator, was born at Portland, Maine. He was educated at Bowdoin College, was admitted to the Bar and practiced law in Natchez, Mississippi. He was at one time a member of the national House of Representatives.

There lies upon the other side of the wide Atlantic a beautiful island, famous in story and in song. Its area is not so great as that of the state of Louisiana, whilst its population is almost half that of the Union. It has given to the world more than its share of genius and of greatness. It has been prolific in statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought all battles successfully but their own. In wit and humor it has no equal, while its harp, like its history, moves to tears by its sweet but melancholy pathos.

Into this fair region God has seen fit to send the most terrible of all those fearful ministers that fulfill His inscrutable decrees. The earth has failed to yield her increase; the common mother has forgotten her offspring, and her breast no longer affords their accustomed nourishment. Famine,2 gaunt and ghastly famine, seized a nation with its strong grasp, and unhappily, Ireland, in the sad woes of the present, forgets for a moment the glowing history of the past.

1 From an address delivered in New Orleans in 1847.

2 The terrible Irish famine was caused by the failure of the potato crop for several successive seasons. The potato crop was at that time the mainstay of Irish agriculture. Shiploads of provisions were sent to Ireland from America and England. The famine was followed by an exodus of millions of Irishmen to America.

Oh, it is terrible that in this beautiful world which the good God has given us, and in which there is plenty for us all, men should die of starvation! When a man dies of disease, he alone endures the pain. Around his pillow are gathered sympathizing friends, who, if they cannot keep back the deadly messenger, cover his face and conceal the horrors of his visage as he delivers his stern mandate. In the battle, in the fullness of his pride and strength, little recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sings his requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel.

But he who dies of hunger wrestles alone, day after day, with his grim, unrelenting enemy. He has no friend to cheer him in the terrible conflict, for if he had friends, how could he die of hunger? He has not the hot blood of the soldier to maintain him, for his foe, vampire-like, has exhausted his veins. Famine comes not up like a brave enemy storming by a sudden onset the fortress that resists. Famine besieges. He draws his line around the doomed garrison; he cuts off all supplies; he never summons to surrender, he gives no quarter.

Alas for poor human nature! How can it sustain this fearful warfare? Day by day the blood recedes, the flesh deserts, the muscles relax, and the sinews grow powerless. At last his mind, which at first bravely nerved itself for the contest, gives way under the mysterious influences that govern its union with the body. Then he begins to doubt the existence of an overruling Providence; he hates his fellow men, and glares upon them with the longings of a cannibal, and it may be, dies blaspheming.

Let us, then, load ships with this glorious munition, and in the name of our common humanity wage war against this despot - famine ! Let us, in God's name, "cast our bread upon the waters," 1 and if we are selfish enough to desire it, we may recollect the promise that it shall return to us after many days.

THE EMPIRE STATE 2

PETER WILSON

(1847)

You see before you an Iroquois; yes, a native American! You have heard the history of the Indian trails and the geography of the State of New York before it was known to the palefaces. The land of Ganunno 3 was once laced by these trails from Albany to Buffalo, trails that my people had trod for centuries-worn so deep by the feet of the Iroquois that they became your own roads of travel, when my people no longer walked in them. Your highways still lie in those paths; the same lines of communication bind one part of the Long House to another. My friend has told you that the Iroquois have no monuments. This land of Gānūnno, this Empire State, is our monument. We wish to lay

1 Ecclesiastes xi. 1.

2 From an oration delivered before the New York Historical Society, in 1847, by Peter Wilson, a Cayuga chief. Wilson's Indian name was Waowawanaonk, which means "They hear his voice." This selection is taken from the version given in "The World's Famous Orations," by permission of Funk and Wagnalls Company. 3 An Indian name for the state of New York.

our bones under its soil, among those of our fathers. We shall not long occupy much room in living - still less when we are gone.

Have we, the first holders of this prosperous region, no longer a share in that history? Glad were your forefathers to sit down upon the threshold of the Long House.1 Rich did they then hold themselves in getting the mere sweepings from its door. Had our forefathers spurned you from it, when the French were thundering at the opposite end to cut a passage through and drive you into the sea, whatever has been the fate of other Indians, the Iroquois might still have been a nation; and I, too, might have had - a country!

There was a prophet of our race in early times who said that the day would come when troubles would fall upon the Indians so that they would knock their heads together. When that time came, they were to search for a large palm tree and shelter their heads beneath its shade, letting their bodies be buried at its roots, and cause that tree to flourish and become a fitting monument of the Iroquois race. That time has now come; we are in trouble and distress we knock our heads together in agony, and we desire to find the palm tree that we may lie down and die beneath it. We wish that palm tree to be the State of New York, that it may be the monument of the Iroquois.

1 The English settled at one end and the French at the other end of the "Long House," the prosperous region referred to above.

THE SWORD OF WASHINGTON! THE STAFF OF FRANKLIN

1

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

(1848)

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (1767-1848) was born at Braintree, Massachusetts. His early education was received in Amsterdam, and at Leyden University; later he entered the junior class of Harvard College, graduating from that institution in 1787. When but fourteen years of age he had served as private secretary and interpreter to Francis Dana, Minister to the Court of St. Petersburg. It might be mentioned that his is the only case on record when so young a person was intrusted with so responsible a government position. President Washington appointed Mr. Adams Minister to the Netherlands, and later his father accredited him to the Court of Berlin; he also served as Minister to Russia and to Great Britain, resigning the last office to

become Secretary of State under President Monroe. In 1824 he was elected president of the United States, by the House of Representatives. After the expiration of his term as president, he served sixteen years in the House of Representatives. He died of apoplexy in Washington.

The sword 2 of Washington! The staff of Franklin ! Oh, sir, what associations are linked in adamant with those names! Washington, the warrior of human

1 This is an extract from an address by John Quincy Adams in the national House of Representatives in 1848.

2 Samuel T. Washington presented Congress with a sword worn by George Washington in the French and Indian wars and throughout the Revolution, as well as a crab-tree walking stick bequeathed to Washington by Benjamin Franklin.