“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
    Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
  Here once the embattled farmers stood,
    And fired the shot heard round the world.”]

Such are the inventive faculty and self-reliance of New Englanders that they always entertain a profound respect for impossibilities.  It has been largely owing to their influence that we took the negro, who is a natural agriculturist, and made a soldier of him; took the Indian, who is a natural warrior, and made an agriculturist of him; took the American, who is a natural destructionist, and made a protectionist of him.  They are always revolutionizing affairs.  Recently a Boston company equipped with electricity the horse-cars, or rather the mule-cars, in the streets of Atlanta.  When the first electric-motor cars were put into service an aged “contraband” looked at them from the street corner and said:  “Dem Yankees is a powerful sma’t people; furst dey come down h’yar and freed de niggers, now dey’ve done freed de mules.” [Laughter.]

The New Englander is so constantly engaged in creating changes that in his eyes even variety appears monotonous.  When a German subject finds himself oppressed by his Government he emigrates; when a French citizen is oppressed he makes the Government emigrate; when Americans find a portion of their Government trying to emigrate they arm themselves and spend four years in going after it and bringing it back. [Laughter and applause.]

You will find the sons of New England everywhere throughout the world, and they are always at the fore.  I happened to be at a French banquet in Paris where several of us Americans spoke, employing that form of the French language which is so often used by Americans in France, and which is usually so successful in concealing one’s ideas from the natives.  There was a young Bostonian there who believed he had successfully mastered all the most difficult modern languages except that which is spoken by the brake-men on the elevated railroads.  When he spoke French the only departure from the accent of the Parisian was that nuance of difference arising from the mere accidental circumstance of one having learned his French in Paris and the other in Boston.  The French give much praise to Moliere for having changed the pronunciation of a great many French words; but his most successful efforts in that direction were far surpassed by the Boston young man.  When he had finished his remarks a French gentleman sitting beside me inquired:  “Where is he from?” I replied:  “From New England.”  Said he:  “I don’t see anything English about him except his French.” [Laughter.]