Ohio Valley Hist. Ass'n, Fifth Annual
Meeting. 37
Steel Queen, Lee H. Brooks,
Slackwater, Frank Tyler, Margaret,
Return, Frank Fowler, Troubador,
Sunshine and Emily Jung.
The fleet was in command of Capt. James
A. Henderson.
The New Orleans was in command of
Melville O. Irwin, mate;
Thomas Walker, engineer, and T. Orville
Noel, steward.
Fortunately for those in attendance at
the Fifth Annual
Meeting, the Pittsburgh Chamber of
Commerce took the oppor-
tunity of President Taft's presence to
hold Tuesday evening its
annual banquet. The Historical Society
of Western Pennsyl-
vania generously provided tickets to all
members of the Ohio
Valley Association present in the city.
The banquet was held
in the Memorial Hall and the banquet
room presented a scene
of unusual beauty. The event of the
evening was the long-to-be-
remembered reply of President Taft to
the address of Congress-
man Littleton who advocated the repeal
of the Sherman Anti-
Trust law. These addresses have become
historic, but as they
are foreign to the subject of Western
history and the occasion
of the "New Orleans"
centennial, they are omitted from this
report.
Hon. Job E. Hedges followed President
Taft; speaking on
"The Third Party to the
Contract" as follows:
Much of the present day discussion is
wide from the mark, so
far as helping the solution of problems
is concerned, and especially so
if the endeavor is made to square it
with governmental tradition. I
do not believe that the foundation
stones of the Republic are crumbling.
I do not believe that the life of this
great Nation hangs in the balance.
I do not believe that vice has a
strangle hold on virtue, and that there
are only one or two men who can pull
vice off. When the adviser
on political and social problems becomes
so didactic that he is mentally
lonely, his diagnosis may be logical and
learned, but is useless in ad-
ministering his own remedy. The
impediment, if any, the danger, if
any there be, to a republican form of
government is its size and the
fact that by virtue of its very numbers
fewer people have the oppor-
tunity to make themselves felt by virtue
of the fact that they are limited
in their opportunities for discussing
the same topic at the same time
with others of the same belief, or those
whose belief they propose to
affect.
So great has governmental influence
become, so far-reaching, that
the law may be either a scourge or a
remedy. It seems to have escaped