The Portland daily press., 1900-07-05
Judge Symonds' Eloquent Address
in City Hall
Was the Only Feature
of the Day.


The Glorious Fourth in Portland was
glorious as far as the weather was con
cerned but in little else. In fact 1t was
the quietest Independence Day that this
city has known in many years. There
was some noise in the early morning but
it died away soon after sunrise excepting
for a few fire crackers and toy pistols.
The bells We're rung at sunrise, noon
and sunset and the bell ringers earned
their money and kept the city awake for
a few minutes bat with the ending of the
bell ringing the excitement subsidized.
Everyone seemed to be absent from the
city or to be remaining quietly at
home. The electric roads and steamboats,
did an immense business and took many
people out to the pleasure resorts in the
suburbs. During the "A hours there
were but 80 arrests for drunkenness but
many of those arrested were discharged.
Very few accidents were reported and
none of a erious nature. There We're
band concerts during the day but they
seemed to be poorly patronized aud
though the children enjoyed them, few
adults listened to the music.
THE EVENING EXERCISES.
The crowning feature of the day was
the meeting in City hall in the evening
and the address of Judge Joseph W
Symonds There were not many people
present Mayor Robinson presided and
spoke briefly. Mr. Timothy Scanlon
Of the Deering High school read the
Declaration of Independence and was fol-
lowed by the orator of the evening.
Judge Symonds IS most eloquent and
finished orator. The address he delivered
last night was one of his best efforts. He
said in part:
We hear again with the old and at the
same time perpetlIally new, interest and
delight the brave words by which our
fathers dissolved the political bonds
which had connected them with Great
Britain and assumed among the powers
of the earth the separate and equal station
to which the laws Of nature and Of ma
ture S God entitled them. These words
ring and resound in our memories and
their force and meaning are never lost.
They are ON. inheritance from men, who
and made it 1llustrOuS for all time who
Will be loved and reyeFed by their de
seendants as long as the noble lenage
lasts of men who have inherited their
spirit and that, let Us hope will be for
ever. All men are created equal, they
said. In the light of history was not this
a startling declaration, q challenge to all
the past, a defiance to immenorial preju
dice and pTaetices Did they intend to es-
tablish in this country a dead level Of
vulgarlty or medlecrlty. Far from 1t.
Our ancestors were no Jewellers, they
believed h personal greatness. What
titles of nobility could equal in value the
genuine glory of Washington or Marshall
or Webster or LincolnY These men form
our trus nobility whom the accidents of
fortune do not affect.
Our ancestors loved the heights and
dwelt upon them themselves. What they
intended to say as I understand it was
that there should be an open field, fair
play for all men, equality Of right and
opportunity before the law, a chance for
the display of personal capacity, the rec
ognized right of every man to work out
his own life, distinct, peculiar, his own
perfect life. If it were a diamond among
the elements very well. If it were co n
mon clay that We're still useful provided
the life was well lived.
The speaker went on to say that our
ancestors acquired this love of personal
liberty in England for they could not
learn it elsewhere for elsewhere in any
sense that justifies comparison it never
grew nor flOur1shed. The liberty loving,
notwithstanding Anglo Saxon race
declared itself anew in our Declaration
of Independence. The speaker went on
to discuss, in q scholarly manner, the
history of personal liberty which he
found did not altogether flourish In an
Gent Greece though in the school of
Athens our fathers might have learned
something of their love for liberty but
they could have learned little there of
that constructive reason by which they
made the privacy of the cottager's
hearth as sacred as the prerogative of
the King. Neither was this lesson learned
by our forefathers from Rome. They
received little assistance in the loftiness
and purity of their purpose to aid man
kind and to affirm It's rights from any
maxims OF the Roman law. II a breath Of
inspiration for them crossed the chasm Of
two thousand years it came from the
lives and examples of Roman patriots and
not from the body of Roman Jurisprudence
itself
The speaker then went on to tell
of the spr1nging of the English
law from the forests of the North and
of its growth and spread throughout the
world. The American constitution when
adopted was like stately trunk, selected
from among the best growths Of all time
its roots capable of drawing sustenance
from the deepest sources and best ele-