New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-10-04
certain and permanent the improvements 1t Is
endesvoring TO introduce
THE SONS or ABoLITIoNISTS.:
hlghly commendable suggestiOn was made

A highly commendable suggestion was MADE
by correspondent in yesterdays TRIBUNE 10
the effect that Society OF Sons OF ADolltioh-
lists should lie organized. There is already IN
this country bewildering array OF societies.
for great variety of objects. The work
achieved by many of them has been OF meal
oulable importance Benevolent societies have
made life. both of man and beast, far better
worth living. Scientific and literary societies
have greatly widened Telescope of human knowl-
edge. And amid many others, by no means least
in importance are the historical ard memorial
societies. which have no new gospel to preach,
no reform TO work but seek merely to gather
and preserve the relics and records OF the past,
and to perpetuate the honor due to the great
men and great deeds of former years. VI such
q character. doubtless, would chiefly be the work
Of the organization that has been suggested, and
toward the practical formation of which steps
are about to be taken. That just such work
deserves to BIO done in Just that direction there
is no room for dispute.
For whatever may be the estimate Of the
Abolition movement formed in these later years,
and especially whatever may be thought OF It's
actual influence upon the progress OF events IN
the last generation this at least will never be
denied. that IL was a singulary unselfish and
heroic act in an age not greatly marked IN
other directions by those qualities. The "nig-
ger-thieves' Of half century and less ago were
actuated by no greed of possible gain in their
manipulation of the underground railroad"
1t meant expense, in energy, time and money
with no possible return save in the satlsfae-
ton of having freed fellow-men from bondage.
II meant danger too danger Of the dungeon,
the whipping post, and death itself. And there
are men now living who unhinchingly endured
the cell and the lash as purely for cOnscience's
sake as any martyr Of the lnquisition. How
ever great or small may be tho credit due to
those men for the results achieved in 1851
'65, it must never be allowed to fade from the
National memory that at the time when the
slave power ruled by brute force in Congress,
and even the foremost statesmen Of the North
and East were bowling in servile acquieScence
to the Fugitive Slave law, there were men brave
enough to say-and to do-that they would re-
sist to the death any attempt to make the free
citizens Of free State do the work OF man
hunting bloodhounds. 1t may not have been
politics it was magnificent.
Only a few of the actual participants in those
stirring events now live. But their children and
grandchildren cherish their memory as precious
heritage. To hundreds of men and women it is
as lofty source of pride to say that their fathers
were Abolitionists as to say that their remoter
ancestors fought at Bunker Hill or came over
in the Mayflower. II is fitting that such should
be enrolled in a permanent organization which,
by its name and works, shall perpetuate the
memory of the Aboitionists. And it will be no
evil to the Nation if it shall also perpetuate
something of their hatred of the wrong, their
fearlessness in the cause of what they held to
be tho right, and their unoompromising zeal for
what appeared to them the paramount duty Of
their lives