Evening star., 1900-01-18

worthy for posterity to look upon. but also
to avoid recklessness in rearing monuments
upon slight grounds. Here in Washington.
especially, We should bear this principle in
mind; for this is the city of the nation and
it should have no place for local glories or
provincial heroes. Yet even here we have
been careless that while We have given
space to one or more statues of estimable
persons, the fact of whose existence will
be known only by their eff1Gies, We have
found as yet no place for a. statue of Ham
Hton, the greatest constructive statesman
of our history, or for the great soldier
whose genius made the campaign of EickS-
burg rival that of Ulm.
To-day no such doubts or criticisms need
haunt or perpleX US. We can thank the
artist who has conceived, and most unre-
servedly can We thank the generous and
public-spirited citizen of New Hampshire
who has given the statue which We unveil
this morning. II any one among our states
men has title to statue in Washington
it is Daniel Webster, for this is the ma
tional capital, and man was ever more
national in his conceptions and his achie, e.
mentS than he.
The Real Reasons.
What are the real reasons for the great
place which Webster fills in our history? l
do not propose to answer this question by
reviewing the history of his time or by re-
telling his biography. Both history and
biography contain the answer. Yet neither
is the answer. They are indeed much more
for they carry with them, of necessity,
everything concerning the man, his strength
and his weakness, his virtues and his de-
fects, all the criticism, all the differences
Of opinion which such a career was sure
to arouse and which such an influence
upon his country and upon its thought,
upon his own time and upon the future,
Was equally sure to generate. There is a
place for all this, but not here today. We
do not raise monument 10 Webster upon
debatable grounds and thus make 1t the
silent champion of one side of a dead con-
troversy. We do not set up his statue be-
cause he changed his early opinions upon
the tariff. because he remained in Tyler's
cabinet after that Presidents quarrel with
the wings, or because he made upon the
1th of March a speech about which men
have differed always and probably always
will differ Still less do We place here his
craven image in memory of his faiiings or
his shortcomings. History, with her cool
bands, will put all these things into her
scales and mete out her measure with calm
unfuching eyes. But this is history's task,
not ours and we raise this statue on other
grounds
monument. In what does that greatness,
acknowledged by ALL unquestioned and un-
denied by any one, consist? Is it the fact
that he held high office? He was a brill
liant member of Congress: for nineteen years
a great senator; twice Secretary of State.
But the peerage solicited him. not he the
peerage.' Tenure of office is nothing no
matter how high the place. A name re-
corded in the list of holders of high Office
is little better than one writ in water If the
Office holding be all. We do not raise this
statue to the member of Congress, to the
senator of the United States to the Sec
retary of State, but to Daniel Webster.
That which concerns us is what he did with
these great places which We're given to him,
for to him, as to all others, they We're mere
opportunities. What did he do with these
q nnpnrtnpitieC2 u,ba
he do with the splendid faculties which ma
ture gave him? In the answer lies the
greatness which lifts him out of the ranks
and warrants statues to his memory
First, then, Of those qualities which he
inherited from the strong New England
stock that gave him birth, and which ma
ture, the fairy who stands by every cradle.
poured out upon him. His father was a
high type of this class, a farmer and a
frontiersman, a pioneer and Indian fighter
then soldier of the revolution. On guard
the night of Arnold's treason, Washington
In that dark hour declared that Capt Web
ster was a man who could be trusted, SIM
pie words. but an order of merit higher
than any glowing ribbon or shining star.
So fathered and SO descended, the child
was endowed with physical attributes at
once rare and inestmable.
But the abilities were far from COM
mon. The intellect within answered to the
pear when we hear of 'Webster's boy
lifted upon a stone wall to read or recite
to the teamsters stopping to water their
horses near the Webster farm. They were
a rough, hardy set, but there was some
thing in the child with the great dark
eyes that held them and made them listen.
And the father, gallant and quite pathetic
soul, with dumb and very manifest love
of higher things, resolved that this boy
should have all the advantages which had
been denied to himself.
His Progress Upward.
$50 he went on and up from the college,
the school house and the country jury, un-
til he stood at the head of the American
bar before the Supreme Court of the ma
ton. On and up he went, from the early,
fiorid orations Of youth until he became
the first orator of his time, without su-
perior or rival. Up and on from the farm
wall whence he read to the rude audience
of teamsters, to the times when thousands
hung upon his words, when he created pub