The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1868-11-25

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2 DEDICATION OF THE
NE ODD FELLOWS HALL,
49,. NEW ORLEANS.
Mr.. Chairman, Ladies' and Gentlemen:
X. Fifteen years ago, within q few yards
from, this spot, which encompasses to-day
this brilliant assemblage of the talent, the
beauty and the responsibility of our city
and for? the like purposes which have
brought you together, another assemblage,
with the same attributes that give dignity
to this pageant, gathered for conservation,
within the walls of q noble structure dedi-
Gated to the principles, objects and works
of Odd Fellowship. gii J3i9 5ta.
Fifteen years ago, he, who privileged by
the partial regard of his associates, has now
the ohonor of addressing you, stood up
within those walls to speak for the order,
its aims, its worth and its usefulnessness
Since that period many changes--the nat
ural accidents Of life-have crowded thick
y around US. Death, the great tythe-gath-
erer Of mankind, unpausing in his exac-
tons, has claimed add wrung homage from
many, too many, of the worth;est, the love
Hest and the best, who met on that occa-
sion and for whose hearted greetings and
generous aspirations we might look ia vain,
wereyou not here to-day 10 renew the one
and breathe the other. which we accept
with grateful Acknowledgements. 7aIt t32
Yet has not death alone broken through
the circle of our affections and our regards.
War, also, the most terrible OF his satellites,
has stalked among as with red foot, and
left US tokens Of its passage in bloody
trackways, scanning the whole surface Of
our Southern land. OF all the calamities
which it brought in its train-save and ex-
cept the life-sacrifce of our dear, our noble
and our brase-no calamity more dire did
it bring than that which urged the wanton
proclamation, or marked the criminal de-
struction, of the temples OF God-the
Courts of Justice-the asylums of Piety-
the shrines Of Learning-the halls of Leg
islation and the nurseries of Philanthropy.
You have learned, or heard, from history,
that the Huns and the Cloths housed their
squalid legions in magnificent monuments
of human genius. You have heard that
the northern hordes, from the Don and the
Wolga, Uttered their horses, the noblsr an
imals, in temples of science and of art
You have heard this, and wo that It has
been our fate to realize the bitter expert
ence Of the past ages of savagism. Wo!
that the history of barbaric days and of
barbaric excuses has been our own history
yet a history not Of our making, though it
may be one of our righting, when the great
day of justice and of truth will have dawn
ed over our land iaf.i 81 t1ittif
We, of Louisiana, have not been spared
the sad tribute to this spirit Of vandalism.
The monument Of architural taste, reared
by the unstinted contributions of our
wealth at the capital our State-the build
ing in which the choice men of the land,
meeting in the better days, were wont to
consult for the common veal, and to pro-
claim to all the ritual of our political liber-
ties, now holds out, to the sight of the
but mass Of roofess wallis, pro-
testing 10 eloquent silence against the en-
ormities of the invader. The statue of the
great champion of our freedom4of the
purest patriot and wisest statesman that
ever lent power and dignity to people
like the works of the Phidian chisei, into
the hands of Verres, the Roman plunderer
OF boards of art, has passed into those of
an even meaner pluuderer; and Louisiana,
IN mournful expectation, awaits, if not the
sense Of shame, the voice, at least, of some
Cicero, some Northern Cicero, to seattle
the infamies Of the robber and recall, to its
pedestal, the image Of him, whom the pa
triotism Of the State had thus fondly hop
ed to honor for ages to GOMEZ Our own
city, in however indirect manner, has not
escaped, in one of its monuments the visi.
tatidhs of var. A structure, conceived in
the best aud purest motives, that can ap-
peal to the human heart---a structure rear
ed by the lovirg anxieties and sustained by
the free contributions Of all good men,
from every station in hie--a structure con-
secrated to devoted, charitable Deeds"
which never failed to meet the call of
want, or soothe the anguish of bereave-
ment the Independent Order of Odd Eel
lows had erected to be, at once, dispen-
sary of benevolence and an ornament to
the city of New Orleans. But, alas there
was the dust of vulgar feet uponlts floors
base hirelings stood where good men had
once stood; and, whether from the care
lessness, or from the malice, of the Janlz-
aries, imposed upon US by the brutal leg.
islation Of brutal Congress, the beautiful
fabric crumbled il the devouring flames
amidst the borrow of our community; the
dismay of tho widow and the wall of the
orphan. F
Yet. thanks to the unsleeninp yioiIance