Morris & Tasker Co.; Stanley G. Flagg Jr., of Stanley G. Flagg & Co.; P. D. Wanner, of Millert Foundry & Machine Co.; Walter Wood, of Camden Iron Works; James S. Stirling, of Harlan & Hollingsworth Co.; A. E. Outerbridge Jr., of William Sellers & Co.; A. A. Miller, of The Iron Age; and others.

I have no doubt some of the names I have mentioned are well known to many of your membership; consequently you will not wonder that they were successful as business men anxious for new worlds to conquer. One of the questions taken up by them was that of calling the foundrymen of the United States and Canada to meet here. That question was discussed many times and finally decided upon. Howard Evans, the secretary, undertook the task of finding the names and addresses and sent out invitations dated June 28, 1891. There were responses and representatives assembled here in July, 1891, from every state with one or two exceptions. The first meeting was held in the Manufacturers' club, July 21, 1891. The convention was a complete success for on or about July 29, 1891, the American Foundrymen's association was delivered by that convention to Mr. Schumann and Mr. Evans, who in turn transferred it in swaddling clothes on that hot summer's day 28 years ago to the tender care of John A. Penton.

This is a brief narrative of the triumvirate which had most to do in conquering a world of difficulties and securing a very important and exalted place in the business world for the foundry trade. I believe Evans, Schumann and Penton should be honored as immortals for what they did through the instrumentality of their foundling in bettering conditions and promoting scientific management of the foundry.

Association Renders Great Service to Industry

If I closed without properly acknowledging the great service your association has rendered to the foundry interests of this country, I would have failed in an important duty. Consequently I bestow well earned praise and congratulations on the successive managements which followed Mr. Penton and thus relieved him of his charge because he was too busy a man to give it the care it needed.

Fortunately there was no mistake made by the transfer and I am compelled to admit that the Philadelphia Foundrymen's association has no monopoly of the great men in the foundry business. The American Foundrymen's association in securing the services of Dr. Moldenke was very fortunate in more ways than one. His fine personality, sweet and pleasant manners attracted able and efficient aids to bring the youngster through the mumps and teething season and when its faculties were developed, so as to be in a receptive mood, he furnished it regularly with pure and unadulterated scientific knowledge drawn from the fountain head, where he kept it stored up for instant distribution.

Nothing

That is the record up to Mr. Backert's time. remains to be done but to keep steadily on with the work thus set in motion. I am not familiar with the men who as directors gave efficient aid in accomplishing results nor the membership which supported you, besides I don't want to enlarge too much for fear of having our members desert us in a body and join your association, leaving me president of an organization that did exist.

The great and unparalleled success of your association and its achievements are proof that no matter how it was started, the men who have had the direction of its affairs have accomplished remarkable results. They have done good work and have elevated their trust far beyond anything that the sponsors considered as possible of being accomplished. We of Philadelphia feel justly proud of our offspring and congratulate you for your very intelligent management and for the grand success you have achieved.

In conclusion I greet and welcome you to Philadelphia. I welcome you as an American citizen, as a citizen of Pennsylvania and as an adopted citizen of Philadelphia, the dearest spot on earth to me. I extend a Cead Mille Failthe-"One hundred thousand welcomes!"-to the American Foundrymen's association and hope that your stay may be pleasant and that you will come again and that I will get the unanimous vote to welcome you, providing your return is not delayed more than 10 or 15 years from 1919.

The Crisis

BY HON. JAMES M. BECK

I want to speak to you tonight very earnestly and very simply about that which I have called "The Crisis." To my mind the world was never in quite as grave danger as it is today, and it is a danger that does not come from without, but from within. There is a chapter of American history of which most of us are very ignorant. We know the epoch from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, it is schoolboy's talk in America, and we naturally take pride in the embattled farmers' brave struggle against tremendous odds, but that which followed Yorktown is very much like the old-fashioned Victorian novel which always concluded with the marriage of the happy pair and never said anything about what took place after marriage.

What Came After

After Yorktown cane seven or eight years of tremendous stress out of which grew that most wonderful piece of machinery in all the world-the constitution of the United States. Bolshevism and anarchy swept this government after Yorktown until even the brave heart of George Washington-a heart that never failed him in strength even in the darkest days of Valley Forge-fell into the deepest depression by the extraordinary happenings that were going on in the newly emancipated colonies. There was a perfect wave of lawlessness. Class was arrayed against class, colony against colony, interest against interest. It was, as at this time, the end of a world war. As Washington said, the whole world was in an uproar. As he said again, "The problem is to steer between Syclla and Charybdis." The situation became so acute that finally civil war broke out, chiefly in Massachusetts, with what was called Shay's rebellion, when, as we would say today, Bolshevists seized the executive departments of the government, took the

court houses, drove out the constituted authorities, confiscated debts, seized the little factories, if factories there were and in that way attempted to bring about the very state of affairs that exist now in Russia. I want to read to you, as illustrating the intense anxiety of even so brave a man as Washington, two things that he said at that time.

Washington's Alarm

"I often think of our situation," he wrote, "and view it with concern. From the high ground we stood upon, from the plain pathway which invited our footsteps, to be so fallen, so lost, is mortifying; but everything of virtue has, in a degree, taken its departure from our land."

And when he heard of Shay's rebellion in Massachusetts, which required an army of 5000 men, then a relatively large force, to put down, this cry of anguish came from the Father of his country in far-off Mt. Vernon:

"What, Gracious God, is man, that there should be such inconsistency and perfidiousness in his conduct? It was but the other day that we were shedding our blood to obtain the constitutions under which we now live, and now we are unsheathing our swords to overturn them. The thing is so unaccountable that I hardly know how to realize it or to persuade myself that I am not under the illusion of a dream."

The confusion became so great that barbers plastered their walls with the worthless currency of the nation. Our government bonds were worth about 25 cents on the dollar. Foreign nations refused to recognize the new republic, and finally in that hour of acute despair, all turned to Washington. Washington, leaving again the sweet retirement of Mt. Vernon, came to the historic city of Philadelphia and rallied a few faithful spirits about him. The constitutional convention began its deliberations. But out of seventy-three men appointed to the constitutional convention, only fifty-five ever took the pains to attend, and of those fifty-five, only thirty-nine remained until the last session, and of those thirty-nine, sixteen refused to sign the document that was to confer immortality upon them all. In

referring to the task which confronted the few faithful delegates, Washington said:

"It may be that no plan that we can propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful contest is before us. If, to please the people, we do that which we cannot approve, how can we afterwards commend our work to them? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and just can repair; the event is in the hand of God."

And for four months, with that inspiration of appealing to the best in men, they met in Independence Hall and at the end of four months, after a bitter struggle, the great document that we call the constitution of the United States was completed. As the Fathers commenced to sign it, the great sage of Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin, pointing to the sun-the half disc of a sun that was represented upon the chair in which George Washington sat, said, "I have often wondered during the progress of this convention, whether that sun is to be a rising or a setting sun. Now I know it is a rising sun."

New Forces on the Horizon

And through the past century it has proved a rising sun. And yet our institutions, raised under this constitution, are in more deadly peril than they have been within the memory of living man, and that for the very obvious reason that through the very power of multiplied association due to machinery, there have grown nongovernmental forces so stupendous as to threaten the integrity of government itself. It has come like a black shadow in twenty-five years. Why, twenty-five years ago the Knights of Labor was a great national labor organization. You will remember the first attempt that was ever made to force their will upon the people of this country, not by the ballot, which is their constitutional right as the constitution provides, but to force it upon the people in a manner so malevolent and cruel that Prussia need not be ashamed of anything they have done.

Why do I say that? When a dispute arose in 1894 between the employes of the Pullman company and the Pullman operators, thereupon, under the leadership of labor organizations, for