The Secretary of State to
the President.
Department of State,
Washington, December 20,
1906.
Under your direction I had the pleasure, at Philadelphia, on April 20,
1906, of fulfilling the wish of the Congress of the United States as
expressed in its act approved April 27, 1904, by presenting to the
French Government, through its accredited ambassador to the United
States, the impression on gold of the medal which, in pursuance of the
act referred to, was struck to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary
of the birth of Benjamin Franklin.
I have the honor to submit herewith, with a view to their transmission to
the Congress for the information of that body, a copy of the remarks
which I made on that occasion, a copy of the reply of the French
ambassador, and a translation of a note from him showing the very
appropriate disposition which the French Government had made of the
medal.
Respectfully submitted.
speech of the secretary of state presenting
the medal.
Excellency: On the 27th of April, 1904, the
Congress of the United States provided by statute that the Secretary
of State should cause to be struck a medal to commemorate the two
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin, and that
one single impression on gold should be presented, under the
direction of the President of the United States, to the Republic of
France.
Under the direction of the President I now execute this law by
delivering the medal to you as the representative of the Republic of
France. This medal is the work of fraternal collaboration by two
artists whose citizenship Americans prize highly, Louis and Augustus
Saint-Gaudens. The name indicates that they may have inherited some
of the fine artistic sense which makes France preeminent in the
exquisite art of the medalist.
On one side of the medal you will find the wise, benign, and spirited
face of Franklin. On the other side literature, science, and
philosophy attend while history makes her record. The material of
the medal is American gold, as was Franklin.
For itself this would be but a small dividend upon the investments
which the ardent Beaumarchais made for the mythical firm of Hortalez
& Co. It would be but scanty interest on the never-ending loans
yielded by the steady friendship of de Vergennes to the distressed
appeals of Franklin. It is not appreciable even as a gift when one
recalls what Lafayette, Rochambeau, de Grasse, and their gallant
comrades were to us, and what they did for us; when one sees in
historical perspective the great share of France in securing
American independence, looming always larger from our own point of
view in comparison with what we did for ourselves.
But take it for your country as a token that with all the changing
manners of the passing years, with all the vast and welcome influx
of new citizens from all the countries of the earth, Americans have
not forgotten their fathers and their father’s friends.
Know by it that we have in America a sentiment for France; and a
sentiment, enduring among a people, is a great and substantial fact
to be reckoned with.
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We feel a little closer to you of France because of what you were to
Franklin. Before the resplendence and charm of your country’s
history—when all the world does homage to your literature, your art,
your exact science, your philosophic thought—we smile with pleasure,
for we feel, if we do not say: “Yes, these are old friends of ours;
they were very fond of our Ben Franklin and he of them.”
Made more appreciative, perhaps, by what France did for us when this
old philosopher came to you, a stranger, bearing the burdens of our
early poverty and distress, we feel that the enormous value of
France to civilization should lead every lover of mankind, in
whatever land, earnestly to desire the peace, the prosperity, the
permanence, and the unchecked development of your national life.
We, at least, can not feel otherwise; for what you were to Franklin
we would be—we are—to you; always true and loyal friends.
speech by the french ambassador on receiving
the franklin medal, philadelphia, april 20, 1906.
On behalf of the French Republic, with feelings of deepest gratitude,
I receive the gift offered to my country, this masterful portrait of
Franklin, which a law of Congress ordered to be made and which is
signed with the name, twice famous, of Saint-Gaudens.
Everything in such a present powerfully appeals to a French heart. It
represents a man ever venerated and admired in my country—the
scientist, the philosopher, the inventor, the leader of men, the one
who gave to France her first notion of what true Americans really
were. “When you were in France,” the Marquis de Chastellux wrote
later to Franklin, “there was no need to praise the Americans. We
had only to say: Look; here is their representative.”
The gift is offered in this town of Philadelphia, where there exists
a hall the very name of which is especially dear to every American
and every French heart—the Hall of Independence—and at a gathering
of a society founded “for promoting useful knowledge,” which has
remained true to its principle, worthy of its founder, and which
numbers many whose fame is equally great on both sides of the
ocean.
I receive it at the hands of one of the best servants of the State
which this great country ever produced, no less admired at the head
of her diplomacy now than he was lately at the head of her army; one
of those rare men who prove the right man, whatever be the place.
You have listened to his words, and you will agree with me when I
say that I shall have two golden gifts to forward to my
Government—the medal and Secretary Root’s speech.
The work of art offered by America to France will be sent to Paris to
be harbored in that unique museum, her Museum of Medals, where her
history is, so to say, written in gold and bronze from the fifteenth
century up to now, without any ruler, any great event, being
omitted. Some of the American past is also written there—that period
so glorious when French and American history were the same history,
when first rose a nation that has never since ceased to rise.
There, awaiting your gift, are preserved medals struck in France at
the very time of the events, in honor of Washington, to commemorate
the relief of Boston in 1776; a medal of John Paul Jones, in honor
of his naval campaign of 1779; another medal representing
Washington, and one representing General Howard, to commemorate the
battle of Cowpens in 1781; one to celebrate the peace of 1783 and
the freedom of the thirteen States; one of Lafayette; one of
Suffren, who fought so valiantly on distant seas for the same cause
as Washington; one, lastly, of Franklin himself, dated 1784, bearing
the famous inscription composed in honor of the great man by Turgot:
“Eripuit cӕlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.”
My earnest hope is that one of the next medals to be struck and added
to the series will be one to commemorate the resurrection of that
great town which now, at this present hour, agonizes by the shores
of the Pacific. The disaster at San Francisco has awakened a feeling
of deepest grief in every French heart, and a feeling of admiration,
too, for the manliness displayed by the population
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during this awful trial. So that what
will be commemorated will not be only the American nation’s sorrow,
but her unfailing heroism and energy.
Now, your magnificent gift will be added to the collection in Paris;
it will be there in its proper place. The thousands who visit this
museum will be reminded by it that the ties happily formed long ago
are neither broken nor distended, and they will contemplate with a
veneration equal to that of their ancestors the features of one whom
Mirabeau justly called one of the heroes of mankind.
