Mr. President, My Fellow Guests and Gentlemen of the Hibernian Society of Savannah:

 
As I have sat here this evening, not once, but twice or thrice your distinguished president has nudged me with the question: Did you ever see such order preserved anywhere else? [Laughter]

 And when I consider that this is the Hibernian Society [Laughter] and you have had this president for twenty-five years, I marvel. [Laughter]  I can only say that it refutes the idea that the Irishman is against the government [Laughter] and shows that that was only the result of oppression and bad government; and that when you give him the flower of growth, as he has here, he appreciates the strong hand that makes for order, and sympathizes with it even in a celebration like this. [Laughter]

 My Friends, I am delighted to be in Savannah again. [Applause] I always accept every invitation that I can possibly meet to the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day [Applause] because there I know I shall find that essence of good fellowship founded on charity that makes the evening’s splendid influence memorable and lifts the soul into an atmosphere that one likes to live in. [Applause] When that is mixed with the flavor of Southern hospitality you have a mixture and an amalgam that you can not excel anywhere. [Applause]

 Now, I hate to be a descending climax. Never have I attended a banquet where there was so much real eloquence as we have heard here. [Applause] I am not either an orator or poet, and I can not treat you as those who have preceded me have, or lift your souls as they have, with the thoughts they have adorned in words, but I am glad to be here none the less and to have my say.

 The history of these five or six or seven great Irish Societies of more than a century is most significant; for it shows that the Irish and the Irish strain reach back into the roots of this country; [Applause] that spirit of liberty that our greatest living orator speaks of as he speaks of his native land, that found its hours and product here in the formation of that constitution and government that shall preserve liberty to us forever. [Applause] 

But you Irish have brought a great deal to this country. I do not know how much of the America humor is due to you; but I do know that a great deal of it is due; and I know that American humor is one of the things that is going to save us in the end, [Applause] because it is going to enable us to see through the propositions that are made to make over this government. [Applause] It is going to enable us to stand on the ground, with our feet on the ground, and not be lifted off of the earth, and to go into an atmosphere where we do not know whither we are going, or what we are doing. [Applause] 

I listened to the speech of the gentleman who responded to the toast of Savannah with a great deal of pleasure. He spoke as if he felt in his blood the feeling of his ancestors who knew what it cost to make this government, and to make the permanent bones that now constitute its strength.  [Applause] And now we are going to abolish all this [Laughter, cries of No. No] Oh, yes, we are, in order to get to the rule of the people. Why, a good many of us have thought that we had the rule of the people; but we are all wrong. A good many of us thought that we had Democracy; but we are all wrong. [Laughter] The remedy for the defects of that little Democracy we have, we are told, is more Democracy.  All I have to say about that is that the man who says so doesn’t understand the theory of popular government so that it may be permanent and preserve the rights of the individual as well as the greatest good of the greatest number [Applause]  And it is because I believe that the Irishmen and their descendants know what liberty is, and know what liberty is regulated by law, and know that there is no liberty worth having that is not regulated by law [Applause] that I make this confident appeal to you to stand by the principles of our forefathers, and protect and maintain the Constitution that has carried us over thus far. [Applause] The thing that one loves about the Irish is that you do not find any socialists or anarchists among them. [Applause]  You find the faith of which my friend has spoken so eloquently among them; you find the optimism that makes for better things, and you do not find the pessimism and the desire to pull down that means destruction without any construction ahead. [Applause]

 I have no objection to a change, if the change is shown to be useful; but what I object to is putting the cart before the horse. I want to know what it is that you are going to do with this new method of government; what are the measures you are going to take after you have changed your government to make things so much better. Give us some definite program rather than a talk of a change of the fundamentals of government. Let us know what are the measures. [Applause] Let us know what are the measures that will accomplish what is called social justice and greater equality of opportunity that this popular government won’t adopt if they are only shown? [Applause] What is the use of abolishing a government that has proven well, has served us well, into another instrumentality, unless you can show that the result of that instrumentality is going to be better? In other words, get down to business and facts. [Applause] Do not tell us that you are going to accomplish a result away ahead, without telling us how you are going to accomplish it. [Cry of “Right you are!”] We are all actuated by high purpose – I hope we are; we would all be glad to make everybody happier if we could, and we are searching the method, we are trying to find how that can be done; but that is a definite proposition. Now, how is it going to be made any more definite by making over the government that has served us thus well? [Applause] Show me that under the present government we cannot adopt any measure of a definite character that will do better for the people, and then I will agree to the change of government.  [Applause] [Voice: “You are all right.”  President:  “I thank you, sir.”]

Now, my friends, I am not going to detain you longer [Cries of “Go on, go on!”]  ; there is one other thought that I wish to utter, and that is that I said to the Southern people when I first came into office that the highest aim of my administration was to have it said, when I laid it down, that I had done some things that brought the sections nearer together. [Applause]  I have maintained that spirit throughout my administration, and I can only hope that when I do lay down the power [Cry of “Don’t lay it down!”] you, my friends, will think of me and my administration with a certain sort of fondness, on the ground that, to the best of my endeavors, I have carried out that purpose. [Applause]