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Show 36 37 to will be that of carrying the idea of the coming Congress different sections of people in this city. I came to Chicago from to me. Boston by way of Philadelphia. and that route suggested a very interesting parable and a very interesting course of his- torv. I I thought at Philadelphia of the great work which was done in organizing the different small states along the Atlantic Coast into the American Union: and I remembered that the work of independence had begun in Boston through the strong attitude of those Boston town meetings at the Old South Meet- ing House. which proved more than a match for the British Parliament and the British King. Those men of the lloston town meetings could have done very little if they had worked indi- graved upon the top of the back of the chair in which the Presi- dent of the Convention, George V\'ashington, sat; and many a time during these anxious days he had wondered whether that was a setting or a rising sun. "But happily today," he said, "there is no doubt about it-it is a rising sun; the sun of the American Union is rising as the result of the union of states here in this convention which has given us a national constitution." I never stand in Independence Hall and look upon the faces of the founders of the Republic upon the walls without looking at last, as I turn through the door into the busy street, at that emblem of the rising sun upon the chair standing there as it stood in 1787. That was a remarkable advance in the process of organiza~ tion, the step beyond the organization of individual citizens into a town meeting: the step from the organization of the little states made up of the constituents of those huudrcds of town meetings. the organization of the representatives of those states into a nation. But as I last stood in Independence Hall I thought how two years ago I stood in the gallery of the Old Hall of Knights at The Hague, in llolland, and looked down upon-what? Something vastly larger and more pregnant for the world than a constitutional convention for the ['uited States. I looked down upon the Parliament of Man. It is truly an inspiring thing. my friends. to live in a time when this world is being organized as the states of the United States were organized at l'liiladelphia in 1787. "c have been dr'amintr of this Parliament of Man and the federation of the world so long, the poets have been singing about it so long, that it is hard for us to realize that at last that ‘arliamcnt of Man is here in plain prow. that it has come; and blessed are our eyes that see the joyful sight, and blessed are our ears that hear tln- joyful wuud. It was a wonder: ful thing in the summer of 1907 to sit in the gallery of that old Hall of Knights at The Hague, and look down upon the represeu< tativcs of forty-six nationsihy wonderful t‘idllCltlt‘IlCt' the same number of nations that there are states in the ['uited States and to r'alize that there the I'l»i‘tjt>~ix nations of the world were being" welded into an international union, as our forty-six states are welded into a federal union. That means so much, that those of vidually, but in union there was strength, and in those town "Lulu" ,M‘I in pt meetings in Boston away back there in 1775, and in other similar town meetings and local gatherings all through the colonies, a strong organization was brought together which proved adequate to that great undertaking, first of independence, then of peace, and theniof a constitution for the United States of America. For by and by, as the thing went on, representatives of all those colonies gathered in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I know of no more sacred spot in all the world. There is none, perhaps. so sacred to the American as Independence Hall in Phila4 delphia. where our independence was asserted, and where by and by these little states were welded into a union. It is inspiring, indeed, to stand in that little hall and look upon the portraits on the wall of \Vashington and Jefferson and Adams and Frank- lin and all those great men who gathered together into united strength through organization of their scattered forces. It was a pa‘ahle and a prophecy and a preparation for what was going to come in your time and mine in uniting the separate nations of the world into a united world. It was a truuhltvus time; it was an anxious time. You remember how. when that Constitutional Convention in 1787 came to a close. Benjamin l-‘ranklin, the most venerable man in the gathering. rose and made that memorable speech telling how he had sat there through all those anxious days when he wondered whether that Constitutional Convention was to come to grief or come to s ccess: and he said during those anxious days he had looked again and again at the little golden sun which was en-r us who have \‘.'ltllt‘~.\'t‘tl it, thme of us who have waited for it. and |