The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-03-22

his release with few men boarding and
capturing the English armed brig or
Castipe under fire of an English battery;
after the Revolution, lieutenant, then
captain, in our navy, and then IN his flag
ship The Constitution, !" in command OF
our squadron in the Mediterranean,
storming Tripoli and relieving thu seas
from piracy; at last he came home
to Portland, with shattered health, to die
at the early age of forty-dve: The gold eld
medal which Congress gave him with the
thanks of a grateful nation, and fine old
portraits of him, afford ample material
for the likeness of Commodore Edward
Preble.
Why should not some noble portrait
ure of him in sculpture face the mansion
which he built in our principal square?
Let it stand by the Soldiers monument
commemorating kindred spirit, kindred
dust We might fancy him reused from
his rest in the fields Elysian to welcome
the coming of that later band of patriots,
the soldiers and sailors of our war for the
Union, (among them grandson, worth
lily bearing his name, at hiss post on the
Kearsarge when the Alabama went
doWn) as Tennyson, in his great ODE,
dreams of the meeting of Nelson and
Wellington in. the world of shades.
The stately elm-tree, the Lafayette elm,
under which that illustrious friend OF
America stood, when in 1925 he was well
coined to the capital of the new State OF
Maine, was destroyed in the terrible con-
fagration of 1866; but some finc monu-
ment or statue should take it's place to
mark the historic spot
1t is strange that the streets ana
squares of Portland are still without
memorial to William Pitt Fessenden, the
most intellectual man in public life DUR
ing the period of the Rebellion, grand.
historic figure in the brilliant group OF
statesmen around President Lincoln, and
perhaps greatest of all in his mastery OF
the grave and difficult problems of the
period of reconstruction. Let us hope
soon to see in Portland d public monu-
ment worthy to commemorate his splen-
did career, and to express the universal
sentiment of grateful admiration for his
life and character and illustrious public
service.
The name of Nathaniel Parker Willis
will long hold it's place among the memo
lies of American literature, and his birth
place in Portland ought to be designated
by some worthy memorial, statue OF
bust, on LINCOLN Park.
And Paul Akers, would that by some
hand as cunning as his own memorial
might be wrought of him, of his brilliant
and brief career, of his early achievements,
literary and artistic; some memorial OF
the past that would still hold in itself
the promise and prophecy of the future
that might have been, full of the dream
and hope all too soon extinguished by his
early DEATH He died at thirty mine.
b at all this is as If we were stroll1ng
together upon the beach at sunset, pick
ing here and there a gem from among the
pebbles Another stroll, and other gems
appear.
What wealth of incident and private
character, what brilliancy and renown of
public service, what halo of learning ana
virtue, what richly freighted memories
and associations of beautiful and NOBLE
lives, have the years drawn about this
goodly city of ours ny the sea! They are
in all our minds, we need not name
them.
We are ascend led today to look upon
portrait, which the hand of genius has
touched, of q man whose life, only recent
ly closed, from period which long pre-
cedes the recollection of us all was as
much a part of his native city as the
glory of the morning breaking over our
eastern bay, as the high noon when IL
looks down into our tree bordered streets,
as the sunset waning in tremulous beauty
into night beyond the western hills; and
like the sunlight, too, in it's influence
encircling the globe
The proprieties of this occasion, to
which I would sensitively respond, forbid
10y V6uUuTluE III W0db soy Ivy OLN olS
limits of common ground, on which we
all can meet. No line of disputed ooun
dairy shall be crossed or reached by me-
Methods and means and all that pertains
to controversy are far removed from our
thought today I sound no Earring note.
| would speak only the common sent1-
ment, only those things on which the
minds of all agree.
That the life of General Neal Dow was
pure and noble and good, that through
out its course, from first to last, he
labored for benefcent end, in all sim
certify and disinterestedly, with such dill
gence in public cause as men ordinarily
apply to their private affairs, That his
voice was an eloquent one and his pen
facile, effective, fine and strong, THAI
large bodies of good men here and else
where, at home and abroad, looked to him
as leader and guide and lookingto him
far in advance never saw falter1ng step,
listening to him never heard @ word of
doubt or fear, only the clarion note from
farther and farther height, that as in peace
he had Iabored for mankind, for the good
of all, so at the sound Of war it was easy
for him to springsto the very height OF
patriotism in the hour of mis- country s
| danger, these things none will deny; and
what more would just eulogy demand?
| Rawlinson musing over the ruins of
| Assyria repeats the warning, which the
RECORDS Oh DdUlOQS SO constantly oiliCICc,
that the greatest material prosperity may
co-exist with the decline, aud may herald
the downfall of kingdom.
| But here was man whose life was de-
voted to an idea; who left the paths OF
throbbing, busy life, the field of palpable,
material interests, to labor-I WILL not
say for an abstraction; it was not that
| but for theory of Legislation in which
not his own welfare but Gas he believed,
the good of the world was invoIved.
What element of knightly honor or de-
votion was wanting in the courage, faith.
ardor, with which he upheld the cause tc
which he had given his life?
| A man of courtly presence and manner
of noble simplicity of life, he was great in
the singleness of heart and persistency OF
aim with which he pursued his own idea
OF the public good, and in the unceasing
enthusiasm and passionate zeal which
warmed the heart of old age with the
very lifeblood OF youth.
| 1t need not be said that General Dow
was as far removed as possible from the
adventurer seeking personal gain from
the cause he espoused On the contrary,
as we all know, he was a gentleman OF
1 IL