The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-07-06

| responds. And conscious though / an
| of my own unworthinesS to fill the par
| that the welcome you have extended is
| meant as no personal compliment, but
| only as an expression of your regard
| for the country which fills our thoughts
| today-this moment shall remain one OF
! the proudest memories of my life. II
| did not need your welcome to make me
feel that am no stranger to you. For
although [ am from a State of the
| Union the remotest from these Islands
! it is a State which must forever remain
| ndelibly connected with the history OF
| these Islands and with your own. II
would be invidious to recall the roll OF
honor. l need name but two. She gave
to Americans here and throughout the
to Americans here and throughout the
world two illustrious and Incompatible
warm response in your hearts-twin
prophets with Seward of the future i'm
ands- James G. Blaine, that Maine
claims also as her son, him in whose
best blood, him who under trying cir,
cumstances such as seldom come to
any man, under conditions which con-
front founders of states, of which heroes
are created-him who has shown him
self worthy, thrice worthy. to be the
first President of Hawaii-and who hon
orS us with his presence here.
1t has been said, 1 trust not truly,
that there are Americans who when
them the love of it Whether this be
true or not, I do not know; but one
thing I know. that of such are not the
Americans of Honolulu and Hawaii nei!
For you, when you came here, and the
pioneers before you, when you left the
house of your fathers to come here, as
they pressed on to cross the AlleghanieS,
you left not behind the ideals they i'm
planted, and forgot not their teachings.
But rather did you cherish them the more
press them closer to your bosoms, and
carry them with you-untn today the
virtue, the intelligence, the respect for
law, and love of country that unite and
hallow every American home, continue
to feel here the holy flames of a patriot
ism as ardent as burns anywhere out
side the limits of the land we love- Until
here we can exclaim, as has every Am
erican landing on these shores, looking
eloquent Southerners bridging the bloody
chasm of the war and the darker abyss
of reconstruction: I've are in our
Fathers house; we are at home-thank
Godr'
One hundred and twenty-one years ago
the fathers gave us the right to celebrate
this day; and ever since the God of bat
ties gave them the victory that makes
righteous revolutions, we, their children.
have. paid our annual tribute of loyalty
and loVe-aS we do nowi
Our rtribute-insignificant it must be in
final ransom paid to rescue US from the
reproach that we gave the lie to the
character of liberty in the land Of liberty
itself-by him it was said of other heroes
The world will little note what we say,
but it can never forget what they did"
So say we now-say it of those patriot
set thereby a price on their own heads
say it of those whose defeat meant vic.
tory at Bunker Hill, who starved at
Valley Forge, and died in prison ships
in camp and field. So say we of those
mothers who as mothers have since the
world began, toiled, and suffered and sac
riffced in silence and unknown.
So say we now, recalling as we have
the right TO do on this natal day, the
full roll of heroes; say we of those
later heroes who christened with a sec
ond baptism of blood the birth of liberty
and challenged on her own domain the
proud mistress of the seas. In that war
when sailors rights We're won," yard
locked in yard, 'hot gun lip kissing gun"
as they came from the martyred Eps of
Lincoln, said of those heroes dearer be-
cause nearer to us ALL to whom these ISL
ands contributed their full share who
died in this final convulsion of our ma
tonal body which was to give it the |