Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE DENVER COMMEMORATION

HE Denver Centenary celebration was a notable one, starting in at the State House in the morning, the General Assembly suspending business and holding special exercises in joint session, to which the public was invited. Admission to the lower floor was reserved for the members of the Legislature and their friends, and a portion of the gallery was reserved for members of the Grand Army of the Republic and their wives; but the rest of the house was thrown open to the public. Fine addresses were delivered by the Hon. John F. Shafroth, Governor of Colorado, and by Senator-Elect Charles J. Hughes, Jr. The exercises were very impressive, being opened by an Invocation by the Chaplain of the Senate, the Reverend P. T. Ramsey, followed by the vested boys' choir of St. Mark's Church, in a processional. A chorus of children from the Denver public schools, under the direction of Professor Whiteman, sang patriotic airs, and the Washington Post Veteran Vocal Club had a place upon the programme. The Emancipation Proclamation was read by the Clerk of the Senate, M. J. Smith, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech was read by the Reading Clerk of the House, Frank Leary. The Benediction was pronounced by the Chaplain of the House.

This observance of the day was followed in the afternoon by an imposing military parade, in which marched, side by side, aged veterans of the Civil War, regular army troops, and men of the National Guard. The parade ended at the vast Denver Auditorium, into whose walls twelve thousand people had crowded to offer tribute to the memory of Lincoln. Here, taking part in the great chorus of national airs, were one thousand school girls in white; behind them ranged the grayhaired veterans of the Civil War; and, still beyond, the blue uniforms of the national standing army. Each company of the parade carried its flag into the hall, while hundreds of

small flags waved in the hands of spectators. At this vast mass meeting, Governor Shafroth was again one of the orators. Other noted speakers upon the programme were Mrs. Sarah Platt Decker, Ex-President of the National Federation of Woman's Clubs; E. L. Stirman of Beauregard Post, Veterans C. S. A.; and Joseph Farrand Tuttle, Jr.

Many of the city schools held Lincoln Day exercises on the afternoon of Thursday, February 11, and on the morning of Friday, February 12. The town was lavishly decorated in its business section, the streets being draped with bunting and made bright with flags.

The Grand Army veterans held a special celebration on the evening of February 12, which was in charge of all the Posts of the city; numerous auxiliary societies being present. This meeting had the flavor of the old War time, with the bitterness abstracted. The old time patriotic airs were sung, full of the memory of the days of the Blue and the Gray.

The Denver Centenary celebration was one of the most enthusiastic in the country, and was participated in by the entire population. The events of the Centenary Day in Denver proved that the proclamation of Governor Shafroth and of Mayor Spear, regarding the day's fitting celebration, had found unreserved and enthusiastic response in the heart of every citizen.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE PERFECT RULER OF MEN

IT

JOSEPH FARRAND TUTTLE, JR.

IT is said that when the sun is at its zenith, the huge towering form of Mont Blanc is reflected in a little pool at its base. Even so is the great Abraham Lincoln in our hearts to-day. We love him not only as the great President, the great statesman, the great martyr, the great Emancipator of a race whose representatives here in this service to-day and all over the world, are bowing in loving worship at his shrine,

but we love him because he is the great Master of men-the Perfect Ruler of men-who in his humble birth and in his magic power to charm the hearts of men, has made all the dearer to us the story of Bethlehem's wayside inn two thousand years ago.

As those three swarthy lords from the Orient hills paid their loving homage to the Child in the manger that first Christmas morning, so there were "wise men" at Washington in 1860 who laid their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh at the feet of Abraham Lincoln, the child of the West.

I suppose the most powerful body of men ever associated in American history, was President Lincoln's Cabinet in the first year of his administration. There was William H. Seward, the ablest diplomatist of his age; Edward Bates of Missouri, that wily political chief of the old Whig school; Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, courtly, able, dignified, polished. These three men had been Lincoln's active opponents at Chicago for the nomination in 1860, and with the instinct of a perfect ruler he gathered them in his Cabinet, that no dissensions might arise among them to imperil the country. Then there were those great lawyers of Indiana, Caleb B. Smith, and John P. Upsher; Montgomery Blair, the leader of the Maryland Bar; Gideon Welles of Connecticut; Edwin M. Stanton-a fiery eight-in-hand they were, some of them having never worked in harness before-that is having never held office before-with Abraham Lincoln on the box. They pulled up evenly on the bit at the start; but from the slack rein over their backs, each soon, to change the figure, imagined that around himself and his department, was whirling the grotesque Abraham Lincoln like an attending satellite. Secretary Seward was the first to have his mind disabused of this impression, as one day he received a touch with the whip on the flank. And he looked around and wondered if the man on the box meant it. He certainly did.

It happened in this way. One day Mr. Seward said to Lincoln, "Now, you have this great war on your hands, you attend to home matters, and I will look after our foreign

relations." And I can imagine Abraham Lincoln laughing one of those loud western prairie laughs of his, such as John Hay tells us of, as he said, "What a capital idea, Seward; what a team we 'll make! But say!"-as Mr. Seward was about leaving him, perhaps thinking in his heart what easy game he had made of Abraham Lincoln-"Don't forget to show me everything you receive, and particularly everything you send away." And that was all.

Members of the Grand Army of the Republic, you will remember when you enlisted in 1861 and went down to bloody battlefields that the Republic might live, our relations were very much strained with England. The whole North was greatly shocked when a Cunard steamer arrived in New York one morning in the first week of May, 1861, with the published proclamation of Queen Victoria's recognition of the belligerency of the Confederate States. It was a severe blow to Lincoln and Seward, and it was then necessary for Mr. Seward to make good his suggestions and write his first important state paper, viz., a letter of instructions to Charles Francis Adams, our Minister at the Court of St. James. It was such a delicate task that he did not submit it in dictation to a clerk, but wrote it all out carefully with his own hand in thirteen closely written pages. Remembering Lincoln's little caution, he went to the White House with it, to have Lincoln put his official "O. K." upon it. Now the condition of that letter as Lincoln returned it always reminds me of what I used to hear the good people of Cambridge say of Rufus Choate's signature-"a gridiron struck by lightning." Section after section of Mr. Seward's letter had been stricken out; many words-even whole sentences-were erased, and new ones substituted; in some places the white spaces between the lines were entirely absorbed with the interlineation of new sentences; beautiful flowers of rhetoric were ruthlessly torn up by the roots. And then, what do you think! This humble backwoodsman who had been cradled in a hollowed-out log-whose only schooling had been the winter evenings before the rude fireplace, where, in the absence of any candles or of old rags soaked in oil,

[graphic]

Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic in the Denver Centenary Parade

« PreviousContinue »