The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1898-04-02
4 GEA or 0RAz0RY

s'B0b" Cousins OF Iowa, who
made such q reputation by his
speech on Ambassador Bayard, has
achieved another hit. During an
animated and acrimonious debate
on the Maine relief bill the smooth
faced young Congressman was re-
cognized and the result was won
derful. Angry passions were stilled,
and soon tears were seen in the
eyes of men who do not often weep.
At the conclusion of his eloquent
tribute the House burst into storm
of applause, after which members
hurried to the cloak-room to con-
ceal their feelings. Never before
has Congress been so absolutely
swept from its feet over the Cuban
question. The full text of the
young Iowan's eloquent tribute is
as follows:
''The measure now proposed is
most appropriate and just, but hard
ly is it n entionable in contemPla-
ton of the great calamity to which
it appertains. 1t will be merely an
incidental, legislative foot note to a
page of history that will be open to
the eyes of the republic and of the
world for all time to come. No
human speech can add anything to
the silent gratitude, the speeches.
reverence already given by great
and grateful nation to its dead de-
Tenders and to their living kin.
No act Of Congress providing for
their needs can make a restitution
for their sacrifice. Human nature
does, in human ways, its best and
still feels deep in debt. Express
from every country and from every
cline, and every nerve Of steel and
ocean cable has carried on electric
breath the sweetest, tenderest words
of sympathy for that gallant crew
who manned the Maine. But no
human recompense can reach them.
Humanity and time remain their
everlasting debtors. 1t was a
brave, and strong, and splendid
crew. They were a part of the
blood an d bone and sinew of our
| land. Two were from my native
State of Iowa. Some were only
| recently at the Naval Academy,
where they had SO often heard the
| morning and the evening sa1utation
to the f1ag-that flag which had
| been interviewer with the dearest
| memories of their lives, and which
had colored all their friendships
with the lasting blue Of true fidelity.
But whether they came from naval
| school or civil life, from one State
| or from another, they called each
| other comrade--that gem of human
! language which sometimes means a
little less than love and little more
than fri=ndshiP-tha gentle saluta-
ton of the human heart that speaks
! in all the languages of man, that
! winds, and turns, and runs through
all the joys and sorrows of the
human race - through deed, and
thought, and dream, through song,
and toll, and battlefield.
"No foe had ever challenged
them. The world can never know
how brave they were. They never
knew defeat; they never shall.
While at tkeir post of duty, sleep
| luEed them into the abyss, then
death unlocked their sluInbering
eyes for but an instant, to behold
its dreadful carnival. Most of
them, just when life was full of hope
and all its tides were at their
highest, grandest flow-just when
the early sunbeams were falling on
the sleeps of fame and flooding all
life's landscape, far out into the
dreamy, distant horizon-just when
all the nymphs were making dia-