Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-02-21

gavel and apron'of Washington himself; Fire
men, with their old-fashioned engines; Odd
Fellows from thousand Lodges; Temperance
Societies. and other Associations, innumerable;
the children of the Schools, long ago grown to
mature manhood; the military escort Of
regulars, marines, and volunteer militia from
all parts the country, commanded by Generals
Quitman and Cadwaiader and Colonel May,
men snen crowned with laurels won IN Mexico
recall, too, the masses OF the people, OF all
classes and sexes and ages and colors, gazing
or grouped in countless thousands upon the
Monument grounds. But look around in vain
ior any of the principal witnesses of that impos-
ing ceremonial;-the venerable widows OF Al
exander Hamilton and James Madison; Pres-
dent Polk and his Cabinet, as then consti-
Walker Cave Johnson and Clifford; Vice-Presi,
dent Dallas; George Washington Parke Custis,
the adopted son of the great Chief; not fol get
both then members of the House OF Representa-
tves, and for whom the livelest imagination
could hardly have pictured what the future had
IN store for them. OF that whole Congress there
are now but a handful of survivors. and proba-
ply not more than two or three OF them present
here tO-day,-not one in either branch of Con-
OF the national service.
To those of US who took part in the laying of
that first stone, or who witnessed the ceremo-
MES Of the august occasion, and who have fol-
lowed the slow ascent of the stupendous pile,
sometimes with hope and sometimes with de-
an unspeakable relief as we'll as q heartfelt de-
light and joy. l hazard little in saying that
there are some here tO-day,-unWearied workers
in the cause, like my friends Horatio King
and DR.. Toner,-to name no others,-to whose
parting hour special pang would have been
added, had they died without the sight which
now greets their longing eyes on yonder plain.
dare not venture on any detailed description,
ing of the first stone and the lifting of the last
1t would fill a volume, and will be sure here
after to furnish material for an elaborate mono
graph, whose author will literally find SER
mons in StOneS.'-fOr almost every stone has
its story, if not its sermon. Every year of the
first decade, certainly, had its eventful and
which elected contributions, to the amount Of
more than a quarter of a million of dollars,
from l men, women ana children IN IN al parts OF
than hundred and fffty-SiN feet almost at a
bound: the presentation and formal reception
of massive blocks of marble, granite, porphyry,
or freestone from every State in the Union and
from so many foreign nations, -beginning ac-
cording to the catalogue, with stone from
Bunker Hill and ending with one from the
Emperor of Brazil the annual assemblies at
its base each succeeding Fourth of July, with
speeches by distinguished visitors; the sudden
Illness and sad death of that sterling patriot,
President Zachary Taylor, after an exposure to
the midday heat at the gathering in 1S50,when
the well-remembered Senator Foote of MissiS-
sippi had INDUCED in too eXhuberant an adj
dress;-these were among its beginnings-the
end was still whole generation distant.
Later on came the long, long disheartening
pause, When-partly owing 10 the financial en-
barrassments of the times, partly owing to the
country, and partly owing TO unhappy dissen-
sions in the Association itself-any further con-
tributions failed to be forthcoming, all interest
in the Monument seemed to flag and die away,
and all work on it was suspended and practi-
cally abandoned A deplorable Civil War soon
followed and all efforts to renew popular inter
est in its completion were palsied.
How shall depict the sorry spectacle which
those first one hundred and fifty-six feet,
in their seemingly hopeless helpless condition,
with that dismal derrick still standing as in
mOckery upon their summit, presented to the
eye of every conner to the Capital for nearly "a
quarter OF a century,! No wonder the I'M
slightly pile became the subject of pity or
derision. No wonder there were periodical
panics about the security of its founda-
ton, and chronic condemnation of
the original design. No wonder that sugges-
tions for tearing it all down began to be enter
many pens and tongues. That truncated shaft,
with its untidy surroundings, looked only like
an insult to the memory of Washington. 1t
symbolized nothing but an ungrateful country,
not destined-as, God be thanked, it still was
to growth, and grandeur, and imperishabie
glory, but doomed to premature decay, to dis
cord, strife, and ultimate disunion. It's very
presence was calculated to discourage many
hearts from other things, as well as from itself.
where it ought not. An that followed of con-
fusion and contention in our countrys history
seemed foreshadowed and prefigured in that
humiliating spectacle, and one could almost
read on its sides in letters of blood, Divided
Weighed in the balance! Found wantingr'
And well might that crude and undigested
mass have stood SO forever or until the hand Of
man or the operation of the elements should
have crushed and crumbled it into dust, if our
Union had then persisted. An unfinished, frag-
mentary, crumbling monument to Washing ton
would have been fit emblem of divided and
ruined Country. WASHINGTON himself would
sired no tribute, however imposing from either
half of a disunited Republic. He would have
turned with adherence from being thought the
Father of anything less than One Country. with
one Constitution and one Destiny.
And how cheering and how inspiring the re-
a L. Il
no sooner were our unhappy contentious at an
end, no sooner were Union and Liberty, one
and inseparabe, once more and, we trust
and believe, forever reasSerted and treasured,
than this monument to Washington gave signs
OF fresh Life, began to attract new interest and
new effort. and soon seen rising again slow
iy but steadily toward the skies,--stone after
stone, course upon course, piled up in peace,
with foundations extended to the full demand
of the enormous weight to be placed upon them,
until we can now hail 1t as complete! Hence
forth and foreverit shall be lovingly associated,
not only with the memory of him in whose
honor it has been erected, but with an of as
sured peace, unity, and concord which would
have been dearer TO his heart than the costliest
personal memorial which the toll and treasure
OF his cOuntrymen could have constructed. The
Union is itselfthe allsuf1icient and the only suf
fcient monument to Washington. The Union
was nearest and dearest to his great heart.
1.-THE Union in any event." were the most EN-.
phatic words of his immortal Farewell Address.
Nothing less than the Union would ever have
been accepted or recognized by him nlonu.
ment commensurate with his services and his
fame. Nothing less ought ever TO be accepted
or recognized as such by us, or by those who
shall rise up, generation after generation, to do
homage to his memory!
For the grand cOnsummatiOn which we cele-
brate to-day, we are indebted primarily to the
National Government, under the successive
Presidents of the past nine years, with the con.
| current action Of the two branches of Congress
prompted by Committees so often under the
lead of the veteran Senator Morrill, of Vermont
The wise decision and emphatic resolution OF
Congress- on the I'd of August, 1S76,-inspired
by the Centennial Celebration of American In
dependence, and adopted, las it auspiciously hap
pened, on the hundredth anniversary of the
formal signing of the great Declaration,-tha1
| the monument should no longer be left un
flushed with the appointment of Joint Com
settled the whole matter. To that Joint Com
mission, consisting the President of the United
States for the time being, the Senior Vice
President of the Monument Association, the
| with the architects of the Capitol and the
Treasury, the congratulations and thanks of Us
all may well be rendered But / think they
| will all cordially agree with me that the main
credit and honor OF what has been &C
eminently to the distinguished officer o
| Engineers who has been their devoted and un
! firing Agent from the outset. The marvellous
| work of extending and strengthening the fOun
dations Of structure slready. weighing, as Il
| did, not less than thirty-two thousand TONS
siXty-fOur million pOunds,-an operation which
has won the admiration of engineers all ovel
! the world, and which will always associate this
| monument with a signal triumph of scientific
under his personal supervision. His, too, have
been the ingenious and effective arrangements
| by which the enormous shaft has been carried
up, course after course, until it has reached it,
feet as we see it at this hour To Colonel Thomas
Lincoln, CascN. whose name Is associated IL