"The House of Representatives of the United States."

Congressman-elect Haskins was called up by the members and responded briefly. The exercises closed with a selection by the quartette.

THIRTY-EIGHTH REUNION.

BURLINGTON, SEPTEMBER 5, 1901.

The thirty-eighth reunion held at Burlington on the 5th of September, 1901, was made especially notable by the presence as guest of honor and orator of the occasion of VicePresident Theodore Roosevelt, who nine days later became President of the United States, upon the death of President McKinley. Mr. Roosevelt arrived in Burlington in the afternoon, accompanied from Rutland by Senator Proctor. He was greeted by a throng of several thousand persons, at the Rutland railroad station, and was escorted by Troops E and H of the 15th U. S. Cavalry, from Fort Ethan Allen, to the residence of Col. Legrand B. Cannon, whose guest he was for the night. He was accompanied thither by a reception committee of citizens in carriages. A salute of nineteen guns was fired from Battery Park, as the cortege moved from the station.

BUSINESS MEETING.

At 5:30 the annual meeting was held at the City Hall with a large attendance of members. In the absence of President E. J. Ormsbee the meeting was called to order by VicePresident E. B. Sawyer. Capt. Ormsbee came in later and assumed the chair. The following officers were duly elected:

OFFICERS FOR 1901-02.

President, Capt. Stephen F. Brown of Swanton.

Vice-Presidents, Lieut. Joel H. Lucia of Montpelier and Corp. Ransom E. Hathorn of Ludlow.

Secretary and Treasurer, Lieut. Lorenzo W. Shedd of Montpelier.

Executive Committee, Lieut. Fred E. Smith of Montpelier, Lieut.-Col. A. C. Brown of Montpelier and Lieut. Eli Holden of Barre.

The society then took a recess until evening.

THE PUBLIC EXERCISES.

At 7:30 p. m. the society formed at the Van Ness House and headed by Sherman's Military band marched to the Howard Opera House, which was crowded to the doors. The Officers' Society occupied the front seats and upon the stage were seated fifty prominent men of the city and state.

At the entrance upon the stage of the guest of honor the audience rose and gave him a cordial and enthusiastic welcome. The President, Ex-Governor E. J. Ormsbee of Brandon, presided. Seated at his right were Vice-President Roosevelt, Col. LeGrand B. Cannon and Senator Redfield Proctor. Upon his left were Gov. W. W. Stickney, Mayor D. C. Hawley, Congressman D. J. Foster, Lieut.-Col. A. C. Hennissee, U. S. A., and Rt. Rev. John S. Michaud.

Mayor Hawley welcomed the society on the part of the city of Burlington, saying: "We rejoice that we see so many of you spared at the beginning of the twentieth century and we rejoice that the crowning glory of American soldiers is American manhood. We are proud that the American flag is respected alike at San Juan and Pekin. We were proud of you when you went forth to do battle, we were proud of you when you returned and we are proud of you now. We give you the city and may the festivities which we are beginning continue till "The night shall be filled with music and

the cares which infest the day shall fold their tents like Arabs and as silently steal away.'

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Gov. Ormsbee thanked the mayor and said: "We have for the speaker of the evening the Vice-President of the United States. He comes to us not unversed in war and not unversed in the arts of peace; and in behalf of the Officers' Society I introduce to you, ladies and gentlemen, Theodore Roosevelt, Vice-President of the United States." (Great applause.)

VICE-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S ADDRESS.

Mr. President and Members of the Reunion Society of Vermont Officers:

I speak to you to-night less as men of Vermont than as members of the Grand Army which saved the Union. But, at the outset, I must pay a special tribute to your State. Vermont was not a rich state, compared to many states, and she had sent out so many tens of thousands of her sons to the West that it was not improbable that as many men of Vermont birth served in the regiments of other states as in those of her own State. Yet, notwithstanding this drain, your gallant state was surpassed by no other state of the North, either in the number of men according to her population which she sent into the army, or in the relative extent of her financial support of the war. Too much cannot be said of the high quality of the Vermont soldiers; and one contributing factor in securing this high quality was the good sense which continually sent recruits into the already existing regiments instead of forming new ones.

It is difficult to express the full measure of obligation under which this country is to the men who from '61 to '65 took up the most terrible and vitally necessary task which has ever fallen to the lot of any generation of men in the Western hemisphere. Other men have rendered great service to the country, but the service you rendered was not merely great—it was incalculable. Other men by their lives or their deaths have kept unstained our honor, have wrought marvels for our interest, have led us forward to triumph, or warded off disaster from us; other men have marshaled our ranks upward across the stony

slopes of greatness. But you did more; for you saved us from annihilation. We can feel proud of what others did only because of what you did. It was given to you when the mighty days came to do the mighty deed the days called for, and if your deeds had been left undone all that had gone before would have turned into apples of Sodom under our teeth. The glory of Washington and the majesty of Marshall would have crumbled into meaningless dust, if you and your comrades had not buttressed their work with your strength of steel, your courage of fire. The Declaration of Independence would now sound like a windy platitude; the Constitution of the United States would ring as false as if drawn by the Abbe Sieyes in the days of the French Terror, if your stern valor had not proved the truth of the one and made good the promise of the other.

In our history there have been other victorious struggles for right, on the field of battle and in civic strife. To have lost in these other struggles would have meant bitter shame and grievous loss. But you fought in the one struggle where failure meant death and destruction to our people; meant that our whole past history would be crossed out of the records of successful endeavor with the red and black lines of failure; meant that not one man in all this wide country would now he holding his head upright as a free citizen of a mighty and glorious republic. All this you did, and therefore you are entitled to the homage of all men who have not forgotten in their blindness either the awful nature of the crisis or the worth of priceless service rendered in the hour of direct need. You met a great need, that vanished because of your success. You have left us many memories to be prized forevermore. You have taught us many lessons, and none more important than the lesson of brotherhood. The realization of the underlying brotherhood of our people, the feeling that there should be among them an essential unity of purpose and sympathy, must be kept close at heart if we are to do our work well here in our American life. You have taught us both by what you did on the tented fields and by what you have done since in civil life how this spirit of brotherhood can be made a living, a vital force.