Thibodaux minerva. [volume] (Thibodaux, La.) 18??-1858, 1854-07-29
The Washington Monument.

In the Wilkinson Wing of the 18th inst,
we find well written and well timed ar
ticle calling the attention of the American
people to the fact, that the Washington
Monument is about to be suspended for
the want of money, upon which the writer
says:
oft has been now about twenty years
since the project was started, of erecting a
monument to the memory of Washington
worthy OF his character AMI history and
worthy of the Nation that claims and pos
seses the monopoly of such a man. Our
population has increased about 10 millions
since that time, that is, from ! 5 millions to
rs millions. Our wealth has increased ia
an equal if not greater proportion. And
still, the whole amount of contributions to
this august enterprise, after taxing ingenuity
in every conceivable manner in devising
methods OF obtaining money, is less than
100000. The monument has slowly and
draggingly reached but little more than one
fourth of its intended height, and has not
advanced more than one-tenth towards its
entire completion, including the Pantheon
and its furniture of Paintings, Statues, &c.
Republics are ungrateful, Fourth-of-July
orators to the contrary notwithstanding, and
ours the most shamefully so of any on the
records of History. An annual alluslOn, In
bombastc phrase. to the Fathers of the Re-
public, an annual dinner eaten TO the men,
DRY of the Pilgrim of Plymouth starving on
their Rock, is no liquidation of the debt of
reverence, of gratitude, of sedulous imitation
we owe these Worthless Of america. But the
theme is getting too large
The National JgbiIee has come and gone
with its many pleasant meetings and men,
cries and performances Have we no offer
ings, other than verbal, in the present ex-
igency, to make to the memory of Wash
ington! | wish l had some new, some
taking, some irresistible scheme to propose,
by which few hundred dollars could be
won. Our county has not been negligent
in this matter. individuals, Fraternites,
and voters at the ballot boxes, have con-
tributed fully up to the common proportion.
, But we : may and ought 70 = give more;
If the monument is not TO stand there an
evidence of our shame, with its shaft broken
and its top shapeless, we must help and help
soon, and help again. 1t has no endowment
fund; Congress can give nothing, was slow
in giving the $4,000 voted more than fifty
years before for this purpose of statue or
monument. What needs 10 be done must
be done by the people, and annually, and if
rightfully estimated, how noble the privel-
edge Of helping to raise stone by stone to its
last resting place, until the top stone goes up
with shouts of "Grace unto it ~ May you
and live 10 swell that shout as in its sweep,
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. it fingers
among the wooded glories of the Allegha-
MES, and the desert horrors of the Rocky
Mountains, and the snowey silence of the
Sierra Nevada.
To the voyager up the Potomac, the
monument even at its present height, is
one of the first visible tokens Of the City of
Washington. Hardly has the steamers bell
ceased to toll lis daily homage to him who
lies dead at Mount Vernon, when far ahead
level with the water, and cleaning in its
wilderness, rises the unfinished obelisk. And
so the foreign traveller passes from one dis
grace of our country to another-from
Mount Vernon to the Monument And what
has the proud citizen Of america to say in
reply who hears his malignant jeer. while
one remains in ruins and neglect, and the
other is dying of inanitiona
We are a nation OF braggerts-more self
than our surly Cousins of England.
We can "whip" Europe, buy Mexico and
the West Indies, swallow all Of North Amer
lea that does not belong to us, &c, &c,
Well. so we can, after fashion. We can
build Railroads, Steamboats, and States; but
we can build no monument to the Fathers
and the Prophets who put us in the way of
doing these things, and foretold that we
should do them-men from whom sprang
reproductive principles, full Of life inherent,
which shall spread and impel and beget
nations and constitutions to the last syllable |
Of recorded time.
Washington was the honored chief of
these. Let US not be niggardly in our res
verence or our oferingn x.
A PARAGRAPH FOR POSITIVE PEopLE.-How
quietly. yet strongly expressed is the valua-
bic diea of the paragraph annexed. It's the
opening passage Of an artical from The West
Minister Review:
From time 10 time there returns upon
he cautious thinker the conclusion that con-
idered simply as question of probabilities,
u