Chapter 6

Brethren of the Cincinnati--there lies our chief! Let him still be our model. Like him, after long and faithful public services, let us cheerfully perform the social duties of private life. Oh! he was mild and gentle. In him there was no offense; no guile. His generous hand and heart were open to all.

Gentlemen of the bar--you have lost your brightest ornament. Cherish and imitate his example. While, like him, with justifiable and laudable zeal, you pursue the interests of your clients, remember, like him, the eternal principle of justice.

Fellow citizens--you have long witnessed his professional conduct, and felt his unrivaled eloquence. You know how well he performed the duties of a citizen--you know that he never courted your favor by adulation or the sacrifice of his own judgment. You have seen him contending against you, and saving your dearest interests, as it were, in spite of yourselves. And you now feel and enjoy the benefits resulting from the firm energy of his conduct. Bear this testimony to the memory of my departed friend. I charge you to protect his fame. It is all he has left--all that these poor orphan children will inherit from their father. But, my countrymen, that fame may be a rich treasure to you also. Let it be the test by which to examine those who solicit your favor. Disregarding professions, view their conduct, and on a doubtful occasion ask, "Would Hamilton have done this thing?"

You all know how he perished. On this last scene I can not, I must not dwell. It might excite emotions too strong for your better judgment. Suffer not your indignation to lead to any act which might again offend the insulted majesty of the laws. On his part, as from his lips, tho with my voice--for his voice you will hear no more--let me entreat you to respect yourselves.

And now, ye ministers of the everlasting God, perform your holy office, and commit these ashes of our departed brother to the bosom of the grave.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Funeral oration by Gouverneur Morris, statesman and man of affairs, pronounced before the porch of Trinity Church, New York City, over the body of Alexander Hamilton, just prior to the interment, July 14, 1804.

EULOGY OF McKINLEY

BY GROVER CLEVELAND

To-day the grave closes over the dead body of the man but lately chosen by the people of the United States from among their number to represent their nationality, preserve, protect and defend their Constitution, to faithfully execute the laws ordained for their welfare, and safely to hold and keep the honor and integrity of the Republic. His time of service is ended, not by the expiration of time, but by the tragedy of assassination. He has passed from public sight, not joyously bearing the garlands and wreaths of his countrymen's approving acclaim, but amid the sobs and tears of a mourning nation. He has gone to his home, not the habitation of earthly peace and quiet, bright with domestic comfort and joy, but to the dark and narrow house appointed for all the sons of men, there to rest until the morning light of the resurrection shall gleam in the East.

All our people loved their dead president. His kindly nature and lovable traits of character and his amiable consideration for all about him will long be in the minds and hearts of his countrymen. He loved them in return with such patriotism and unselfishness that in the hour of their grief and humiliation he would say to them: "It is God's will; I am content. If there is a lesson in my life or death, let it be taught to those who still live and have the destiny of their country in their keeping."

Let us, then, as our dead is buried out of our sight, seek for the lessons and the admonitions that may be suggested by the life and death which constitute our theme.

First in my thoughts are the lessons to be learned from the career of William McKinley by the young men who make up the student body of our university. These lessons are not obscure or difficult. They teach the value of study and mental training, but they teach more impressively that the road to usefulness and to the only success worth having, will be missed or lost except it is sought and kept by the light of those qualities of heart, which it is sometimes supposed may safely be neglected or subordinated in university surroundings. This is a great mistake. Study and study hard, but never let the thought enter your mind that study alone or the greatest possible accumulation of learning alone will lead you to the heights of usefulness and success.

The man who is universally mourned to-day achieved the highest distinction which his great country can confer on any man, and he lived a useful life. He was not deficient in education, but with all you will hear of his grand career, and of his services to his country and his fellow citizens, you will not hear that either the high place he reached or what he accomplished was due entirely to his education. You will instead constantly hear as accounting for his great success that he was obedient and affectionate as a son, patriotic and faithful as a soldier, honest and upright as a citizen, tender and devoted as a husband, and truthful, generous, unselfish, moral and clean in every relation of life. He never thought any of these things too weak for manliness. Make no mistake. Here was a most distinguished man, a great man, a useful man--who became distinguished, great and useful, because he had, and retained unimpaired, the qualities of heart which I fear university students sometimes feel like keeping in the background or abandoning.

There is a most serious lesson for all of us in the tragedy of our late president's death. The shock of it is so great that it is hard at this time to read this lesson calmly. We can hardly fail to see, however, behind the bloody deed of the assassin, horrible figures and faces from which it will not do to turn away. If we are to escape further attack upon our peace and security, we must boldly and resolutely grapple with the monster of anarchy. It is not a thing that we can safely leave to be dealt with by party or partizanship. Nothing can guarantee us against its menace except the teaching and the practise of the best citizenship, the exposure of the ends and aims of the gospel of discontent and hatred of social order, and the brave enactment and execution of repressive laws.

Our universities and colleges can not refuse to join in the battle against the tendencies of anarchy. Their help in discovering and warning against the relationship between the vicious councils and deeds of blood, and their unsteadying influence upon the elements of unrest, can not fail to be of inestimable value.

By the memory of our murdered president, let us resolve to cultivate and preserve the qualities that made him great and useful; and let us determine to meet the call of patriotic duty in every time of our country's danger or need.

DECORATION DAY[5]

BY THOMAS W. HIGGINSON

Friends:--We meet to-day for a purpose that has the dignity and the tenderness of funeral rites without their sadness. It is not a new bereavement, but one which has softened, that brings us here. We meet not around a newly opened grave, but among those which Nature has already decorated with the memorials of her love. Above every tomb her daily sunshine has smiled, her tears have wept; over the humblest she has bidden some grasses nestle, some vines creep, and the butterfly,--ancient emblem of immortality--waves his little wings above every sod. To Nature's signs of tenderness we add our own. Not "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," but blossoms to blossoms, laurels to the laureled.

The great Civil War has passed by--its great armies were disbanded, their tents struck, their camp-fires put out, their muster-rolls laid away. But there is another army whose numbers no Presidential proclamation could reduce, no general orders disband. This is their camping-ground--these white stones are their tents--this list of names we bear is their muster-roll--their camp-fires yet burn in our hearts.

I remember this "Sweet Auburn" when no sacred associations made it sweeter, and when its trees looked down on no funerals but those of the bird and the bee. Time has enriched its memories since those days. And especially during our great war, as the Nation seemed to grow impoverished in men, these hills grow richer in associations, until their multiplying wealth took in that heroic boy who fell in almost the last battle of the war. Now that roll of honor has closed, and the work of commemoration begun.

Without distinction of nationality, of race, of religion, they gave their lives to their country. Without distinction of religion, of race, of nationality, we garland their graves to-day. The young Roman Catholic convert who died exclaiming "Mary! pardon!" and the young Protestant theological student, whose favorite place of study was this cemetery, and who asked only that no words of praise might be engraven on his stone--these bore alike the cross in their lifetime, and shall bear it alike in flowers to-day. They gave their lives that we might remain one Nation, and the Nation holds their memory alike in its arms.

And so the little distinctions of rank that separated us in the service are nothing here. Death has given the same brevet to all. The brilliant young cavalry general who rode into his last action, with stars on his shoulders and his death-wound on his breast, is to us no more precious than that sergeant of sharpshooters who followed the line unarmed at Antietam, waiting to take the rifle of some one who should die, because his own had been stolen; or that private who did the same thing in the same battle, leaving the hospital service to which he had been assigned. Nature has been equally tender to the graves of all, and our love knows no distinction.

What a wonderful embalmer is death! We who survive grow daily older. Since the war closed the youngest has gained some new wrinkle, the oldest some added gray hair. A few years more and only a few tattering figures shall represent the marching files of the Grand Army; a year or two beyond that, and there shall flutter by the window the last empty sleeve. But these who are here are embalmed forever in our imaginations; they will not change; they never will seem to us less young, less fresh, less daring, than when they sallied to their last battle. They will always have the dew of their youth; it is we alone who shall grow old.

And, again, what a wonderful purifier is death! These who fell beside us varied in character; like other men, they had their strength and their weaknesses, their merits and their faults. Yet now all stains seem washed away; their life ceased at its climax, and the ending sanctioned all that went before. They died for their country; that is their record. They found their way to heaven equally short, it seems to us, from every battle-field, and with equal readiness our love seeks them to-day.

"What is a victory like?" said a lady to the Duke of Wellington. "The greatest tragedy in the world, madam, except a defeat." Even our great war would be but a tragedy were it not for the warm feeling of brotherhood it has left behind it, based on the hidden emotions of days like these. The war has given peace to the nation; it has given union, freedom, equal rights; and in addition to that, it has given to you and me the sacred sympathy of these graves. No matter what it has cost us individually--health or worldly fortunes--it is our reward that we can stand to-day among these graves and yet not blush that we survive.

The great French soldier, de Latour d'Auvergne, was the hero of many battles, but remained by his own choice in the ranks. Napoleon gave him a sword and the official title "The First Grenadier of France." When he was killed, the Emperor ordered that his heart should be intrusted to the keeping of his regiment--that his name should be called at every roll-call, and that his next comrade should make answer, "Dead upon the field of honor." In our memories are the names of many heroes; we treasure all their hearts in this consecrated ground, and when the name of each is called, we answer in flowers, "Dead upon the field of honor."

FOOTNOTE:

[5] Delivered at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass., Decoration Day, May 30, 1870.

FAITH IN MANKIND[6]

BY ARTHUR T. HADLEY

In order to accomplish anything great, a man must have two sides to his greatness: a personal side and a social side. He must be upright himself, and he must believe in the good intentions and possibilities of others about him.

The scholars and scientific men of the country have sometimes been reproached with a certain indifference to the feelings and sentiments of their fellow men. It has been said that their critical faculty is developed more strongly than their constructive instinct; that their brain has been nourished at the expense of their heart; that what they have gained in breadth of vision has been outweighed by a loss of human sympathy.

It is for you to prove the falseness of this charge. It is for you to show by your life and utterances that you believe in the men who are working with you and about you. There will probably be times when this is a hard task. If you have studied history or literature or science aright, some things which look large to other people will look small to you. You will frequently be called upon to give the unwelcome advice that a desired end can not be reached by a short cut; and this may cause some of your enthusiastic friends to lose confidence in your leadership. There are always times when a man who is clear-headed is reproached with being hard-hearted. But if you yourselves keep your faith in your fellow men, these things, tho they be momentary hindrances, will in the long run make for your power of Christian leadership.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when the people distrusted the guidance of scientific men in things material. They believed that they could do their business best without advice of the theorists. When it came to the conduct of business, scientific men and practical men eyed each other with mutual distrust. As long as the scientific men remained mere critics this distrust remained. When they came to take up the practical problems of applied mechanics and physics and solve them positively in a large way, they became the trusted leaders of modern material development.

It is for you to deal with the profounder problems of human life in the same way. It is for you to prove your right to take the lead in the political and social and spiritual development of the country, as well as in its mechanical and material development. To do this you must take hold of these social problems with the same positive faith with which your fathers took hold of the problems of applied science. To the man who believes in his fellow men, who has faith in his country, and in whom the love of God whom he hath not seen is but an outgrowth of a love for his fellow men whom he hath seen, the opening years of the twentieth century are years of unrivaled promise. We already know that a man can learn to love God by loving his fellow men. Equally true we shall find it that a man learns to believe in God by believing in his fellow men.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] The concluding part of a baccalaureate address to the graduating class of Yale University, June 27, 1909.

WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN[7]

BY MARTIN W. LITTLETON

The strongest thing about the character of the two greatest men in American history is the fact that they did not surrender to the passion of the time. Washington withstood the French radicalism of Jefferson and the British conservatism of Hamilton. He invited each of them into his cabinet; he refused to allow either of them to dictate his policy. His enemies could not terrify him by assault; his friends could not deceive him with flattery. In this respect he resembled in marked degree the splendid character of Lincoln.

The single light that led Lincoln's feet along the hard highway of life was justice; the single thought that throbbed his brain to sleep at night was justice; the single prayer that put in whispered words the might and meaning of his soul was justice; the single impulse that lingered in a heart already wrung by a nation's grief was justice; in every word that fell from him in touching speech there was the sad and sober spirit of justice. He sat upon the storm when the nation shook with passion. Treason, wrong, injustice, crime, graft, a thousand wrongs in system and in single added to the burden of this melancholy spirit. Silently, as the soul of the just makes war on sin; silently, as the spirit of the mighty withstands the spite of wrong; silently, as the heart of the truly brave resists the assault of the coward, this prince of patience and peace endured the calumny of the country he died to save.

Lincoln blazed the way from the cabin to the crown; working away in the silence of the woods, he heard the murmur of a storm; toiling in the forest of flashing leaf and armored oak, he heard Lexington calling unto Sumter, Valley Forge crying unto Gettysburg, and Yorktown shouting unto Appomattox. Lingering before the dying fires in a humble hut, he saw with sorrowful heart the blazing camps of Virginia, and felt the awful stillness of slumbering armies. Beneath it all he saw the strained muscles of the slave, the broken spirit of the serf, the bondage of immortal souls; and beyond it all, looking through the tears that broke from a breaking heart, he saw the widow by the empty chair, the aged father's fruitless vigil at the gate, the daughter's dreary watch beside the door, and the son's solemn step from boyhood to old age. And behind this picture he saw the lonely family altar upon which was offered the incense of tears coming from millions of broken hearts; and looking still beyond he saw the battle-fields where silent slabs told of the death of those who died in deathless valor. He saw the desolated earth, where golden grain no more broke from the rich, resourceful soil, where the bannered wheat no longer rose from the productive earth; he saw the South with its smoking chimneys, its deserted hearthstones, its maimed and wounded trudging with bowed heads and bent forms back to their homes, there to want and to waste and to struggle and to build up again; he saw the North recover itself from the awful shock of arms and start anew to unite the arteries of commerce that had been cut by the cruel sword of war. And with this gentle hand, and as a last act of his sacrificial life, he dashed the awful cup of brother's blood from the lustful lip of war and shattered the cannons' roar into nameless notes of song.

Then turn to the vision of Washington leaving a plantation of peace and plenty to suffer on the blood-stained battle-field, surrendering the dominion over the princely domain of a Virginia gentleman to accept the privations of an unequal war--the vision of patriotism over against the vision of greed.

Oh, my friends, we must live so that the spirit of these men shall settle all about our lives and deeds; so that the patriotism of their service shall burn as a fire in the hearts of all who shall follow them. The Constitution which came from one, the universal liberty which came from the other, must be set in our hearts as institutions in the blood of our race, so that this Government shall not perish until every drop of that blood has been shed in its defense; and we shall behold the flag of our country as the beautiful emblem of their unselfish lives, whose red ran out of a soldier's heart, whose white was bleached by a nation's tears, whose stars were hung there to sing together until the eternal morning when all the world shall be free.

FOOTNOTE:

[7] Extract from an address on the occasion of the celebration of Washington's Birthday by the Ellicott Club of Buffalo, New York, February 22, 1906.

CHARACTERISTICS OF WASHINGTON[8]

BY WILLIAM McKINLEY

Fellow Citizens:--There is a peculiar and tender sentiment connected with this memorial. It expresses not only the gratitude and reverence of the living, but is a testimonial of affection and homage from the dead.

The comrades of Washington projected this monument. Their love inspired it. Their contributions helped to build it. Past and present share in its completion, and future generations will profit by its lessons. To participate in the dedication of such a monument is a rare and precious privilege. Every monument to Washington is a tribute to patriotism. Every shaft and statue to his memory helps to inculcate love of country, encourage loyalty and establish a better citizenship. God bless every undertaking which revives patriotism and rebukes the indifferent and lawless! A critical study of Washington's career only enhances our estimation of his vast and varied abilities.

As Commander-in-chief of the Colonial armies from the beginning of the war to the proclamation of peace, as president of the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States, and as the first President of the United States under that Constitution, Washington has a distinction differing from that of all other illustrious Americans. No other name bears or can bear such a relation to the Government. Not only by his military genius--his patience, his sagacity, his courage, and his skill--was our national independence won, but he helped in largest measure to draft the chart by which the Nation was guided; and he was the first chosen by the people to put in motion the new Government. His was not the boldness of martial display or the charm of captivating oratory, but his calm and steady judgment won men's support and commanded their confidence by appealing to their best and noblest aspirations. And withal Washington was ever so modest that at no time in his career did his personality seem in the least intrusive. He was above the temptation of power. He spurned any suggested crown. He would have no honor which the people did not bestow.

An interesting fact--and one which I love to recall--is that the only time Washington formally addrest the Constitutional Convention during all its sessions over which he presided in this city, he appealed for a larger representation of the people in the National House of Representatives, and his appeal was instantly heeded. Thus was he ever keenly watchful of the rights of the people in whose hands was the destiny of our Government then as now.

Masterful as were his military campaigns, his civil administration commands equal admiration. His foresight was marvelous; his conception of the philosophy of government, his insistence upon the necessity of education, morality, and enlightened citizenship to the progress and permanence of the Republic, can not be contemplated even at this period without filling us with astonishment at the breadth of his comprehension and the sweep of his vision. His was no narrow view of government. The immediate present was not his sole concern, but our future good his constant theme of study. He blazed the path of liberty. He laid the foundation upon which we have grown from weak and scattered Colonial governments to a united Republic whose domains and power as well as whose liberty and freedom have become the admiration of the world. Distance and time have not detracted from the fame and force of his achievements or diminished the grandeur of his life and work. Great deeds do not stop in their growth, and those of Washington will expand in influence in all the centuries to follow.