Morning journal and courier., 1885-05-12
THE LIBERTY POLE.
Thoughts Occasiened By Its Removal
 -Reminiseencem.


 We feel as though lifelong friend had ! departed from us. The liberty pole or flag staH which for more than hundred years has risen from the center of our Green is no ! longer there to gladden. the eyes and move the heart by it's beautiful emblem duttering in the breeze, the ever bright banner that ! proclaims our country's glory and her chill dren's joy.
 What memories crowd around the spot 1 Once we were young and now we are old, but l even before we were, away back in the days of our fathers, that was the place, under the 1 @gis of that, high waving, gayly hued flag where on great historic days the people as sembled to listen to the feryid appeals of, our wisest men; there, too, on every recur ring anniversary of our country's freedom the day was ushered in by the booming of the red artillery.
 What power there is in an emblem The cross recalls the sad suffering of him "who spake as never man spake, l" and as the dying man clasps it in his hand, his heart swells with love and gratitude while visions of i'm mortal joy and peaceful rest soothe the clos ing moments.
 
 printers boy, was travelling alone on foot through the heart of Europe. He had been absent for many months from any seaport, when, one morning, he suddenly came in sight of Priests, which he looked down upon from some hills. Its haIbor was filled with shipping gay with the flags of many nations hanging there over the blue Adriatic. The thrill which went through him when his eye finally lit upon the star spangled banner ill that remote spot four thousand miles from his native land, he says no words could ex press. Our readers have since all heard oi this young man. It was Bayard Taylor. Early in the rebellion, as it was then call ed, instead of the now tender expression, 'tConfederate War" there occurred in the southwest corner of Missouri the bloody bat tie of Pea Ridge. One, Union man who lived nearly twenty miles away over the Ar kansas line, told us that all day long he heard the roar of the cannon and knew that battle was progressing, but until late in the next day he was in all agonizing suspense as to the result. Then came upon his ear the distant sound of drums Louder and louder increased the sounds as they were ap- preaching the spot where he was, but wheth CT from friends or foe he knew not. At length body of men appeared coming down the road when he discovered through the branches of forest the ever glorious Amer ican flag The sight at once proclaimed to nm VlclOrV 10 In0 OnlOu. lHou us HIS uostIt bounded with exultation, he felt that for the joy of that moment it were worth the living of fifty common years to experience.
 We once met near the west Missouri line the very personifcation of border ruffian, a tall, wiry, swarthy- y-skinned Southron. All through the rebellion he had fought with the Confederacy, and his talk was bitter and bloodthirsty that we felt uncomfortable ill his presence. Yet he confessed that when in his first battle, that of Springfield, where our own lamented Lyon bravely fell, he felt a reluctance to fire his first shot, for it was into the midst of men who bore above them the stripes and stars. This showed that this 1 odious, hardened wretch whom we believe | could have slain us on the spot at the slight est provocation, and felt no remorse, had withal seed of virtue, for he loved the American flag.
 To many of us it seems but as of yesterday since the grand uprising of the nation eonse- quent upon the fall of Sumter, yet the child of that period old enough to well recollect it is nearing the noon of life, that is ''haf way home,'' as the poet Willis called the age of 35 years in 8 poem commemorating his arriv-
 At that time when every heart WAS fire, and every tongue was full of the awful event two young men loved companions, were crossing our Green arm in arm. They neared the flag staff around which a crowd had gathered to
 
 which henceforth hung there during the en- tire war. They paused and looked up when the taller of the two, with streaming eyes and pallid cheeks, exclaimed, "I am going into this war, and so help me God, will never sheathe my sword until that flag again waves in trium ph over the last revolted State" What the other said we know not, but we do know he did loyal service for the Union by his eloquenee in our public assem- plies and when his companion, Alfred H. Terry at once won the gratitude of the nation and the thanks of Congress by his brilliant and successful storming of Fort Fisher, the other, Henry B. Harrison, in speech before the Connecticut legislature told the incident we here relate.
 Many have been the scenes that have taken place under that flag staff. One we never shalt forget; now fifty summers ago. It was Daniel Webster on the occasion of his memo rable visit to New Haven and speech in the Center church walking in arm from thence with Chief Justice Daggett across the Green under the liberty pole on his way to the Tontfne, followed by group of urchins with open mouths and wondering eyes. The twain made living picture as we saw and felt, of manly nobility and dignity of the highest American type, of which any son of the soil might well have been proud. They were both ponderous men. Travel the whole earth around and scarce two other such could have been found. The judge was "A years of
  sive as that of a Roman Senator. He was at tired in the old Continental costume which he wore up to the time of his death short brooches, powdered hair, ,and white top boots, and when he died they said, "The last of the white tops has gone" Webster was 54 years of age in his prime and in the zenith of his fame He was in his oratorical costume; blue broadcloth coat with shining brass buttons and buff colored vest. His tread was state ly, seemed like that of an elephant. Deliber- ately they walked and talked the giants Daniel and David, oblivious apparently to the wondering, gaping crowd. Daniel Web ster in the eyes of the. American people of that day, possessed the grandest presence, the mightiest intellect of any living mortal Carlyle, who saw him four years later when he went to England as the American ambas- ador to the Court of St. James, said his very pr esence was 8 lie, for the Almighty never made man so great as Daniel Webster looked to be; but then Carlyle did not know ssthe God-like Daniel' people knew him. And this great being was in New Ha- ven and would sleep at the Tontine. Did the town burst with the immensity of his presence? No; in fact it bore the strain remarkably well, but from that day to this the place has been expanding largely in all directions and who knows but from the original impetus, side pressure given by Daniel Webster sleeping in it's center on that memorable summer night A. D. 1855
 'sWhat Daniel Webster would say were he present at this Goth Visigoth and vandal act of depriving our Green of it's glorious en- blem we may imagine. We all know how well he loved our beautiful flag and the ex- quisite pathos and vivid significance of his allusions to it in his celebrated reply to Hayne, the South Carolina nullifer, deliv cred in the Senate in 1880. It seems the right thing to introduce here. Not living mortal can improve it. It is the perfection of the inspiration of patriotism the holy writ is the perfection of the inspiration of re- igion.
 While the Union lasts we have high exciting gratifying prospects spread out before us, for and our children Beyond that seek not to pene- may be opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall turned behold for the last time the in heaven may not him shining oI, the broken and dishonored fragments of a glorious Union; on States discovered discordant, belligerent; land rent with civil feuds or drenched it may be in fraternal blood Let their last feeble and long ing glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the sRrth, still full high advanced its arms and tro-
 hies still streaming in their original lustre, not stripe erased polluted, not single star obscur- red bearnsfor it's motto such miserable 1ntero gatory What is all this worth Nor those oth- CT words of delusion and folly-Liberty first and Union afterward-but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all it's am q A,~ and