[Speech of Charles Emory Smith at the thirteenth annual dinner of the New England Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, December 22, 1893.  Mr. Smith, then President of the Society, delivered the usual introductory address of the presiding officer, immediately after ex-President Benjamin F. Harrison had spoken.]

HONORED GUESTS AND FELLOW-MEMBERS:—­I am sure that you have greatly enjoyed the brilliant and witty speech to which you have just listened—­a speech which shows that our distinguished guest is as felicitous at the dinner-table as he is signally successful in other fields of oratory.  But if you have deluded yourself with the idea that because of this change in the programme you are to escape the infliction of the usual address by the President of the Society, it is now my duty to undeceive you. [Laughter.] Even the keen reflections of General Harrison respecting the prepared impromptu speeches shall not deter us.  The rest of us who are not as gifted as he is have expended too much midnight oil and sacrificed too much of the gray matter of the brain to lose our opportunity.  You will see that we have anticipated his impromptu observations by carefully premeditating our impromptu reply. [Laughter.] Lord Beaconsfield said that Carlyle had reasons to speak civilly of Cromwell, for Cromwell would have hanged him. [Laughter.] General Harrison has been hanging the rest of us—­yes, hanging and quartering us—­though this is far from being the only reason for speaking civilly of him, and yet we must go on with the exhibition.

You have observed that on the programme, as arranged by the Committee, the first number is a prelude by the President and the last a hymn by the Society.  The Committee evidently intended to begin and end with music.  What particular solo they expect me to perform I am somewhat uncertain.  But the truth is you have already had a part of the music and you will have the rest when I am done.  For my part is only that of the leader in the old Puritan choir—­to take up the tuning fork and pitch the key; and I do this when I say that we are assembled for the two hundred and seventy-third time [laughter] to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock.  If any one doubts the correctness of that chronology, let him consult Brothers Shortridge and Lewis and Clark and Cornish, who have been with us from the beginning. [Laughter.] We have met to celebrate these fourfathers [laughter], as well as some others, and to glorify ourselves.  If we had any doubts about the duty we owe our ancestors, we have no scruples about the satisfaction we take in their posterity.  “My idea of first-rate poetry,” said Josh Billings, “is the kind of poetry that I would have writ.”  So our idea of first-rate posterity is the kind of posterity we are. [Laughter.]