St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1859-08-25
4. B. T.. IIILDRETII. Editor.
st. Charles City, Iowa, Aug. 25, 1859.
How Massachusetts IIonOrS her Dead.

How Massachusetts IIOnOrS her Dead
Massachusetts has way of hen
own in celebrating the performances
of her children. \ Boston painter,
or sculptor, or poet, or statesman, or
lawyer, or merchant, with reasonable
claims to consideration is sure to be
warmly encouraged while living, and
TO be long remembered after his death,
Nowhere is the Fourth of July SO
classically celebrated as in Boston.
When Franklin-who was in all re-
spects Pennsylvania statesman
comes to be noticed, he is appropriate
cd, amid a flood of excellent poetry
and frst-class oratory, by Massachu-
sctts to herself. Mr.. Everett, while
honoring Washington, takes care TO
keep his own State constantly before
the people Of the Uni,n Mr.. Webster,
New Hampshire born, always placed
Massachusetts, i'll the foreground
Charles Sumner, like the Englishman
who thought his own farm larger than
the United Kingdom, and the latter
considerably larger than the world, is
absorbed in his idolatry of his own
State. Whittier never rhymes half so
swectly as when he sings of the Pi.
| grim Fathers. "Thc Autocrat of the
! Breakfast table, lives in microcosm
OF his own, and that is Boston. Even
Gen. Caleb Cushing--patriotic and ma
tlonal as he is, whose pen adorns cv-
crything it touches in science, lctcra-
turc, and law-ncvcr was half so elo-
quent as when, more than ten years
ago, he contrasted Massachusetts with
South Carolina, making these the two
great States Of the Union, but taking
care to put his own in advance. Alb
bot Lawrence gathered his vast
wealth less for his own country than
Tor his own city, and died in the midst
OF community, giving not only
good name to his family, but "A splcn-
did hcquest to Boston.
These men have continued to make
FanuCl Hall as sacred as the Hall of
Independence, and the monument of
Bunker Hill an "orator" that speaks
OF the past, and to all the future, full
of the double glory of their own State
and their own country Every county
in Massachusetts, has its special histo-
rlan, and, while ornamcnting local
history, closes his cuIogy with an in
vocation to Boston. Plymouth Rock !
belongs to Boston as much as if, in
stead Of fronting the sea, it formed
the basis Of Bunker Hill, Cal! this
spirit what you may, dcnouncc it as
seIi-compIaccncy abuse those who
indulge it under the Slrasc Of "mu-
tual admiration society,"" we honor it.
1t never had more signal illustration
than in the Choatc obsequics. Here
again we have the poet wearing his
garland, the orator pronouncing his
enIoGy, the lawyer worshipping his
model the divine and the editor come
forward, each with his tribute to
citizen who filled his little place in
life, and is now remembered among
the myriad, but not forgotten, dead. |
Nor are these demonstrations commons
place demonstrations. When Boston
speaks, when Boston writes, when |
Boston sings, she uses good English.
She is all the time making history. |
However we may doubt whether her
joy on the Fourth of July, or her grief
over some distinguished grave, or her
joy over some local triumph of art
or science, is wholly sincere, we can
readily see how eagerly post"rity will
peruse the page she transmits to it, |
and how eagerly the children of such
fathers will read what has been So
claborately prepared for them.