Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1898-04-07
CONGRESSMAN COUSINS SPEECH
On the Disaster to the Battle Ship
rlaine. Delivered In the House of
Representatives March IL.
From the Congressional Record.
Mr.. Cousins said:

From the Congressional Record.
Mr.. Cousins said:
"Mr. Speaker: Whether this meas.
ure shall prevail, either in the form
in which it has come from the COM
mittee or in the form as proposed in
the amendment, it is both appropriate
and just; but hardly is it mentionable
in contemplation Of the great calamity
to which it appertains. 1t will be an
incidental fOotnOte to page of history
that shall be open to the eyes of this
Republic and of the world for all time
to come. No human speech can add
anything to the silent gratitude, the
SPECIFICS reverence, already given by
great and grateful nation to its dead
defenders aud TO their living kin. No
act of Congress providing for their
needs can make a restitution for their
sacrifice. Human nature does, in hui
man ways, its best. and still feels deep
in debt.
Expressions of coincidence have come
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. Human
ity and time remain their everlasting
debtors.
1t was a brave and strong and splen-
did crew. They were a part of the
blood and bone and sineW of our land.
Two of them were from my native
State of Iowa. Some were only recent
ly at the United States Naval Academy,
where they had so often heard the
morning and the evening Salutation to
the fag-thst flag which had been in
terwoven with the dearest memories
of their lives, hat 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 another, they called
each other comrade-that gem of hui
man language which sometimes means
but little less than love and a little
more than friendship, that gentle sal,
utation of the human heart which lives
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 toll and song 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 their posts
of duty sleep lured them into the abyss;
then death unlocked their slumbering
eyes but for an instant to behold it's
dreadful carnival, most of them Just
when life was full of hope and all it's
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 in
to the dreamy, distant horizon; just
at that age when all the nymphs
were making diadems and garlands,
waving laurel wreaths before the eyes
of young and eager nature-just then,
when death seemed most unnatural.
lowering above the dark waters of
that mysterious harbOr of Habana, the
black winged vulture watches for the
dead, while over it and over all there
is the eagles piercing eye sternly
watching for the truth. [Applause.]
Whether the appropriation carried
by this resolution shall be ultimately
charged to fate or to some foe shall
soon appear. Meanwhile patient and
patriotic people, enlightened by the
lessons of our history, remembering
the woes of war, both to the van
pushed and victorious, are ready for
the truth and ready for their duty.
The tumult and the shouting dies
The captains and the kings depart
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and cOntrite heart.
Lord God OF Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget.
Loud and long-continued applausel
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