Address of President Wm. C. Smith

In awarding the Diplomas to the Class of ’88.

I came here this evening in a particularly happy frame of mind, for me, because I had been asked to award the diplomas to this class, and I am always happy when I think I am able to do something to make some one else happy; but my equanimity was quite disturbed, on arriving, to be shown a programme in which I was set down as having to make the closing address, and a little later I broke out into a perspiration on seeing written in shorthand on the blackboard, that “you should never speak unless you have something to say.” Those words have been burning before my eyes ever since, and though I have not taken any lessons in shorthand, I am almost sure I could set that sentence down.

The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen is made up of men who owe what they possess, not to chance, not to gifts of their forefathers, but to the fruit of honest toil. The Society which they have fostered for a hundred years owes its standing to the steady accumulations of these years, not to any sudden speculation or easily acquired prosperity, and it is with pleasure, therefore, that the Society devotes its time and means in helping others to help themselves. We believe in the aristocracy of labor, and we are glad that we are able to do anything whereby we can help any one to help himself.

I shall not make a lengthy address because it is late; it is warm; there are diplomas to be given out, and I believe that the young ladies are anxious to get down stairs where the attraction is greater than anything I can offer them. Yet there is one thought I would like to give out, if you will excuse me.

Yesterday I met a gentleman whom I have known for many years, and whom I never really knew until yesterday. He said to me, “Billy” (he knew me when I was a boy), “have you half an hour to spare?” First I said, “No;” but I thought better of it and said, “Yes.” “I would like you to come round and look at my house.” As he opened the door of that house it was to me a revelation; if there is anything else like it in this country or city, I do not know where it is. It seemed to me I was in fairyland. Here was a large house and yet so filled that it seemed small, from the top of the very attic down to the first story, with articles of vertu and bric-a-brac, with tapestry that had come from all parts of the globe, with ivories, carved in Japan as nowhere else, with mosaics from all sections of the world, with beautiful chairs, with embroidery that had graced the homes of monarchs in the old country, and on his back porch, and in his yard, were beautiful flowers hardly seen outside of the tropics.

I need not say to you how surprised I was; I had only known him as a mechanic, a member of this Society. I spent an hour and a half there I shall never forget; I asked the privilege of bringing my better half.

But the thought that I wanted to impress was this; in a beautiful case, surrounded with plate glass, was a full dinner set of the finest Sevres china. He explained to me that the set was ordered and made expressly for the second Napoleon when he was in the height of his glory. I said to him, “Where did you get this? I did not know a full set of that kind ever got away from royalty.” He said it did once in a while and this was the only one in this country. He had been explaining to me things I never knew about, and he came back to his own self and said, “Billy, you know when the great Napoleon and his court were sipping their soup out of these dishes, I was wielding a paint brush at $1.50 a day and glad to get it.” As I lay trying to go to sleep last night that single sentence came to me and it seemed there was a volume in it. It is an American idea that there is no success which is not attainable by almost any person if we only take those opportunities afforded us. I want to say one word to the ladies, and I believe I said something of the same kind to the boys. I often see it in the papers, I hear it in speeches at trade societies and all that sort of thing, that there is a great change in America; there is no longer any chance to rise; and that we are divided into classes, and that the rich are going to get richer and the poor going to stay where they are.

I hope every American will disabuse his mind of anything like that; there never was a time when opportunities were greater than now. We have got to believe in ourselves and watch the opportunities when they come to us; success cannot be obtained in a day. We may not have to build a railroad but we will build something else, perhaps greater.

Young ladies, it is my privilege on behalf of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, as its President, to present you with these diplomas. I do so with pleasure; first, because I feel that it is our right to give them to you; secondly, because I feel that it is your right to receive them, for you have earned them. They represent to me six months of careful, earnest, intelligent study; six months of devoting yourself to the habit of close application; six months of forming the habit of industry; habits which, I take it, make the road to success to any one who expects to succeed in the future. I congratulate you upon receiving them; they are certificates that carry with them pleasant memories, and I hope will prove in after years profitable ones. In behalf of the General Society, it is my pleasure to thank your teacher; I have witnessed personally his enthusiasm in his calling, and I am proud to say that I have been here night after night and have watched the enthusiasm of the class. I have seen them here sometimes long after the regular school hours, in fact, I had a mind to say, “You are over-taxing these young ladies.” Then I thought it was a life and death struggle for only six months, and the victory was worth the struggle.

I have nothing more to say. I will remember the motto given early in the evening and wish you every success in life which you have obtained in this school.