The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-04-19

Mary E. Blake, which was followed by an ode,
"Humanity's Hero composed by Rev. Mr. Saw
age and rendered by select chorus.
Eulogy by George William Curtis.
Mayor Martin then introduced George William
Curtis, who delivered eulogy upon Mr.. Phil
lips. Mr.. Curtis said
Massachusetts is always rich in fitting voices to
commemorate the virtues and services of her ustri
GUS citizens and in every strain of aectionate ad
miration and thoughtful discrimination the legisa
ture the pulpit and the press his old associates, who
saw the glory of his prime; the younger generation
which chershes the tradition of his devoted life have
spoken the praise of Wendell Phillips. But his native
city has justly thought that the great work of his life
not local limited that it large liberty
and as broad humanity, and that his name, there
fore is not the treasure of State only but national
possession An orator whose consecrated eloquence,
like the music of Amphion raising the wall Of Thebes,
chief force in giving to the American Union the
impregnable defense of freedom, is common benefac
tor; the West may well answer to the East the South
to the North and Carolina and California, Minnesota
and New York minge their sorrow with New England,
and own in his death common bereavement.
At other times, with every mouTnful ceremony of
respect the Commonwealth and its chief city have
amented their dead sons, conspicuous party leaders
who. in high official places and with the formal com
mission of the State have wOrthily maintained the
ancient and the lofty faith of Massachusetts.
But 1t is private citizen whom we commemorate to-
day, yet public LEADER man always formost in Po-
litical controversy, but who held office, and be-
longed to political party; who swayed votes but
who seldom voted and never for party pur-
pose and who for the larger part of his active life
spurned the Constitution as bond of inquity, and
the Union yoke of oppression Yet, the official
authority which DEGREES this commemoration this
great assembly which honors his memory, the press,
which from to sea has celebrated his NAME and L,
who at your stand here to speak his eulogy,
are all loyal to party all revere the Constitution
and maintain the Union, all hold the ballot to be
the most sacred trust, and voting to be the
highest duty of the citizen. As recall the story OF
that life, the spectacle of to-day of the most
significant in history. This memorial rite is not
tribute 10 official service to literary genius, to scien
tifc distinctions it is homage to personal character.
1t is the solemn public declaration that life of
transcendant purity of purpose blended with
manding powers devoted with absolute unselishness
and with amazing results to the welfare of the
try and of humanity is, in the American republic,
example inspiring patriotism so lofty, and pub
lie service benecient that in contemplating them,
discordant opinions, differing judgments, and the
sharp sting of controversial speech vanish like frost
in a food of sunshine 1t is not the Samuel Adams
who was impatient OF Washington, and who doubted
the Constitution but the Samuel Adams of Faneuil
Hail. of the committee of correspondence, of Con
cord and Lexington-Samue Adams, the father of the
revolution, whom Massachusetts, and America re-
member and revere. N1
INFLUENCES SURROUNDING HIS YOUTH. "
The revolutionary tradition the rative air of
Wendell Phillips. When he was born in this city
seyenty-three yeare ago last November some of the
chief revolutionary figures still fingered. John Adams
was living at Quincy and Thomas Jefferson at Monti
cello; Elbridge Gerry Governor of the State
James Madison was President, and the second war
with England was at hand. Phillips was nine years
old when tin 1920 the most important debate after
the adoption of the Constitution the debate of whose
tumultuous elimination and triumphant close he
to be the great orator. began and the second heroic
epoch of our history in which he master figure
opened in the long and threatening contest the
admission of Missouri. Unheeding the transactions
which were shaking the land and setting the
of his career, the young boy of the best
New England lineage and prospects, played upon Bea
Hill, and at the OF sixteen entered Harvard
College. His classmates recall his manly pride and
reserve, with the charming manner, the delightful
conversation and the af1uence of kindly humor
which never lost. He sauntered and gently stud
led not devoted student not in the bent of his
mind nor in the special direction of sympathy, fore
casting the reformer but already the orator and the
easy master of the college PLATFORM and STILL in the
memory of his old com. ,anions, he walks those col
lege paths in unfading youth. figure of patrician
port of sovereign grace-a prince coming to his king
DOM
The tranquil years at the university ended and he
graduated in 1881 the year of Nat. Turner's insur-
rection in Virginia, the year, also, in which Mr. CARR
issued the Lberator, and, for unequivocaly pro-
claiming the principle of the Declaration of lndepend
ence denounced as public enemy. Like other
genynurtured Boston boys, Phillips began the study
Of Law and as IL proceeded doubtless the sirens sang
to him, to the noble youth of every country and
time. If musng over Coke and Blackstone, in the
full consciousness of ample powers and of fortunate
opportunities he sometimes forecast the future, he
doubtless SAW himself succeeding Fisher Amos, and
Harrison Gray Otis and Daniel Webster rising from the
bar to the Legislature from the Legislature to the
Senate, from the Senate-who knew whitherl, 1.-The
idol of society, the appaudcd orator, the brilliant
champion of the elegant repose and the cultivated
servatism of Massachusetts,. The delight of social
ease the refined enjoyment of taste in letters and art
opulent leisure professional distinction gratifed
bton-a these and whispered to the young
student. And is the force that TRANQUILITY put
aside such Establishments with smile, and accept
alienation outlawry ignOmny, and apparent defeat,
if need be- no less than the courage which grapples
with poverty and outward hardship, and climbs
them worldly prosperity which is the test of the
finest manhood Only he who fully knows the worth
of what he renounces gains the true blessing OF re-
nunciation.
The time during which Phillips studying law
was the hour of the profoundest moral apathy in the
history of this country The fervor of revolutionary
feeling was long since SPENT and that of the final anti
slavery contest but just kinoed The question OF
slavery indeed had never been quite forgotten. There
was always anti-slsvery sentiment in the country
ton of the cotton gin in 1889 gave slavery the most
powerful and insidious impulse that it had ever re-
ceived. AT once commercial greed allied with
political advantage and social power and the active
anti.slavery sentiment rapidly declined. Ten years
after the invention of the cotton GIN the general con
venon of the Abolition societies deplored the decay
of public interest in emancipation. Forty years
later in 1888 while Phillips was still
studying law, the veteran Pennsylvania
society lamented that since 1894 it had
seen after another of those societies disband
until it was left almost alone to the universal
apathy. When Wendell Phillips admitted to the
bar in 1884 the slave interest in the United States
entrenched in the Constitution in trade in the church
society in historic tradition and in the prejudice of
race had already become, although unconscously to
the country, of the most powerful forces in the
world. The English throne in 1925 the old French
monarchy in 1850, the English aristocracy at the be-