An American Governor Indeed by S. B. H.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 4, 1912

An American Governor Indeed

By S. B. H.

At the recent St. Patrick’s day festivities in Boston an incident worthy of comment took place. The Charitable Irish Society invited to its one hundred seventy-fifth anniversary dinner President Taft, Governor Foss of Massachusetts, Cardinal O’Connell, and other distinguished persons. Governor Foss did not attend, and the reason is given in the Boston Globe of March 19:—

“The absence of Gov. Eugene N. Foss from the dinner of the Charitable Irish Society at the Hotel Somerset last night was in some ways a conspicuous feature of the occasion.

“A place at the head table had been reserved for the governor.

“The governor was to have sat at the left of the presiding officer, President Lane, while on President Lane’s right were President Taft and Cardinal O’Connell.

“The printed program called for an address from Governor Foss in response to the toast ‘The Commonwealth,’ and this toast came third on the list. The first toast was ‘The United States of America,’ by President Taft, and this was followed by the toast ‘Civil and Religious Liberty,’ by Cardinal O’Connell.

“No explanation of the governor’s absence was given at the dinner, but it was learned that the governor’s absence was intentional, and that he refrained from appearing at the dinner because he felt that the state was not accorded its proper place, that the dignity of the commonwealth required that its representative should speak before the representative of any foreign or ecclesiastical body.

“The trouble had been brewing all day, so it developed, and efforts were made to placate the governor, and to persuade him that the state, as represented by President Taft, took precedence over the church. But the governor could not see it in that light, and he concluded to remain away from the dinner, all efforts to change the order of speaking having failed.”

The governor’s position was warranted and justifiable, and it were well for America if there existed more public men of his stamp.

S. B. H.