St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-04-19
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
Boston Does Great Honor to the Mem
DRY Of Its Great Citizen.
An Eloquent and Discriminating Eulogy
by George William Curtis.

afternoon, attracted more notable audience
than any similar occasion in Boston. The
demand for admission was four times the
seating capacity Of the hall. The assemblage
comprised many fellow workers of the de-
ceased orator. besides distinguished gath
ering Of ladies and gentlemen in sympathy
with his philanthropic acts. Among those
present were members Of the city council,
heads of the departments, several ex-mayors,
Governor Robinson and staff, governors of
the council, judges Of the supreme
and superior and municipal courts and
various United States Government officials
and judges of the federal courts. The old
abolition party was represented by Elizur
Wright, L. N. AIcott, Rev. D. a. Miner,
Samuel Longfellow, T. W. Higginson,
Abbey W. May Rev. James Freeman
Clark, Julia. W. Howe, VIM. Lloyd Garrison,
II. B. Blackwell, and j. G. Whittier. Other
representative persons present were Rev.
Edward Everett Hale, Mrs. Joseph
Cooke, Rev. Phillip Brooks and B.
Aldrich, W. D. Howells, E. P. Whipple.
President Elliott, Vim. Endicott, Jr., Il.
Dana and Robert S. Winthrop.
The exercises began at 3 O'Clock p. m,
with an organ voluntary, followed by the
quartette, ''Loyal to the End.'
Rev. N. J. Savage having offered q prayer,
the quartette sang The Ode to Truth. Miss
Belle Cushman Eaton read poem, written
for the occasion by Miss Mary E. Blake, which
was followed by the ode '.Humanity's Here"
composed by Rev. Mr.. Savage, and rendered
by a select chorus. Mayor Martin then in
troduced George William Curtis, who deliy-
cred an eloquent eulogy upon Mr.. Phillips.
The address was an elaborate review of the
life Of Wendell Phillips, from his birth in
November, 1911, to his death. The speaker
alluded to the excitement in 1887, when
Lovejoy was killed at Alton, H., and a
meeting was held at Faneuil hall, to condemn
the murder Mr. Curtis said:
When the seemly protest against the mon
strous crime had been spoken, and the prop
or duty of the day was done, voice was
heard, the voice Of the high officer solemnIy
sworn to prosecute in the name Of Massa
chusetts every violation OF law, declaring, in
Faneuil hall, sixty years after the battle of
Bunker Hill, and amid a bowling storm of
applause, that an American citizen who
was put TO death by mad crowd
uf his fellow citizens for defending
his right of free speech, died as the
fool dieth. Boston has seen dark days, but
never moment so dark as that. Seven
years before, Webster had said, in the famous
words that Massachusetts binds as frontlets
between her eyes, 'Ihere are Boston and
Concord, and Lexington and Bunker Hill,
and there they will remain forever" Had
they already vanished? Was the spirit Of the
Revolution quite extinct? In the very cradle
Of liberty did no son survive to awake its
slumbering echoes! BY the grace Of God
such a son there was. He had come with
the multitude, and he had heard with sym
pathy and approval the speeches that con-
demned the wrong; but when the
cruel voice justified the murderers
of Lovejoy, the heart of the
young man burned within him. This speech,
he said to himself, must be answered. AS
the malign strain proceeded, the Boston boy,
all on fire, with Concord and Lexington tug
ging at his heart, uncOnsciOusly murmured,
''such a speech in Faneuil hall must be an
swered in Faneuil hall" "Why not answer
it yourself?" whispered a neighbor, who
overheard him. ''Help me to the platform
and l will''-and pushing and struggling
through the dense and threatening crowd the
young man reached the platform, was lifted
upon it, and advancing to speak was greeted
with a roar of hostile cries. But riding the
whirlwind undismayed, as for many year
afterward he directed the same wild storm :
he stood upon the platform in all the beauty
and grace Of imperial youth-the Greeks
would have said God descended-and in
words that touched the mind, and heart, and
80
fire from heaven, recalling Boston to herself,
he saved his native city and her cradle of
liberty from the damning disgrace of ston-
ing the first martyr in the great struggle for
personal freedom. ''Mr. Chairman" he
said, ''when I heard the gentleman lay down
principles which placed the rioters, incendia-
ries, and murderers Of Alton side by side with
Otis and Hancock, and Quincy and Adams,
I thought those pictured lips would have
broken into voice to rebuke the recreant
American, the slanderer of the dead" And
even as he spoke the vision was fulfilled.
Once more its native music rang through
Faneuil half In the orators own burning
words, those pictured lips did break into i'm
mortal rebuke. In Wendell Phillips, glow
ing with holy indignation at the insult to
America and to man, John Adams and
James Otis, Josiah Quincy and Samuel
Adams, though dead, yet spake.
In the annals of American speech, there
had been no such scene since Patrick
Henry's electrical warning to George the
Third. 1t was that greatest of oratorical
triumphs when a supreme emotion, senti-
ment which is to mould people anew, lifted
the orator to adequate expression. Three
such scenes are illustrious in our history.
That of the speech of Patrick Henry at Viii
liamsburg, of Wendell Phillips in Faneuil
hall of Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg
three, and there is no fourth.
For his great work Of arOusing the country
and piercing the national conscience Phillips
was especially fitted, not only by the COM
handing will and genius of the orator, but
by the profound sincerity of his faith in the
people. The party leaders of his time had a
qualified faith in the people. His was I'M
qualified, To many of his fellow citizens it
seemed mad, quixotic, whimsical, or merely
feigned. To some of them even now he ap-
pears to have been only an eloquent dema-
gogue But his life is the reply. To no act
of his, to no private advantage sought or
gained, to no use of his mastery power, ex-
cept to promote purposes which he believed
to be essential to the public welfare, could
they ever point who charged him with base
motives or personal ends.
DISCRIMINATING VIEW.
The eulogist concluded as follows:
No man, I say, can take pre-eminent and
effective part in contentious that shake ma
tons, or in the discussion of great national
policies of foreign relations, of domestic
economy and finance, without keen reproach
and fierce misconception. ''But death, :"
says Bacon, ''bringeth good fame" Then,
if moral integrity remain unsoiled, the pur-
pose pure, blameless the life, and patriotism
as shining as the sun, conflicting
views and differing counseIs disappear,