The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-09-26
MEMBERS Of BARJI1I|'
SPEAK IN FEDERAL
COURT ROOM
CONTINUED from Page ~

swing backwards again, but always
forward, for the new president has an
nounced that he will continue in every
detail, the policy of the dead presi-
dent.
His work for unity and for human
ity, his help for weaker nations, and
his labors for commercial expansion are
deeply rooted and firmly planted and
will stand forever
The speaker closed with a quotation
comparing Mckinley to Lincoln, who
also fell at the foot of his career
COLONEL FITCH SPEAKS.
Thos Fitch, who was next called up
on, responded in the following words:
The President is dead, and the heart of
the nation mourns the loss of great
and a good man, whose life was an in
carnation of the possibilities which lie
in the path of every citizen Of the Re-
public.
Position. though most often gained by
merit, may be an accident; but to live
in the hearts of the people is to have
lived in sympathy with the people, and
no scholarship alone, no eloquence alone,
no gift of genius aline, no achievements
in letters, arts or arms could have won
to their possessor the love which today
sobs it's farewells to Mckinley, under
pine and palm. under maple and mag
nolia alike.
William Mckinley was the beloved Of
free, proud, and mighty nation, be-
cause. in his character and in his career
he epitomized the genius of it's institu-
lions and the elasticity of its genius. He
was the representative of che best type
of American manhood. He leveled up to
every exigency. He anticipated every oc-
casion and was ready to meet it upon a
plane of equality with it, When, a boy
in years, he followed the flag, he gave
not only his patriotic purpose 20 the
cause, but his efficient aid to the per-
formance of the humblest duties of q
soldier. When he gained admission 10
the bar, the bar at once conceded his
right to a foremost place. When .le was
placed in the nations forum, he secured
at once the position of a leader. When
the representatives of great party plac-
ed him in the Presidents chair, he was
as calmly equal to that as to every other
exigency of his great career. When war
was precipitated upon us by the sinking
of the Maine, he held the hot Impotence
of the people in check until army and
navy could be equipped to meet the sud-
den call. With matchless judgment he
selected the military and naval leaders,
whose brilliant achievements astounded
world. With sagacity, with patriotism
and with courage, he guided the ship Of
state through the troubled waters which
encompassed her when the pennant was
hoisted that proclaimed her a world
power. And at last, during long days Of
suffering, he battled for life and yet
awaited death with the faith of a
Christian, with the dignity of philoso-
pher, with the courage of a man.
The charm and the glory of our dead
President was in his Astounding and kind
ly humanity. Bitterness. malevolence,
uncharitableness and all defacing and de-
basing qualities were strangers to h1
thought. In the great contest which for
long years shook our land from center to
circumference-in the battle between the
bayonets behind which were passion,
and the bayonets behind which were a
thought, in the contest long since happi-
ly ended In cOmpacted national unity, he
was animated by the loftiest principles,
unmixed with any personal anmosities.
There cannot be found in all his public
utterances, extending through more than
thirty years of active participation in
public affairs, one single sentence ex-
pressive of hatred toward man or section
-one single sentence that his biographers
need suppress, or his friends find neces-
sary to explain.
1t is not fitting that I should on this
occasion indulge in lengthy review of
the character and career of the hero and
statesman who has gone. Do say gone
All, no! When great man dies and we
gaze at his unfinished efforts and cry
out for some proof that the work goes
on, some thought, some echo some sub
TEST sign, what billiards are we all.
Can we not discern that the testimony
of the soul is the only testimony that we
dare not challenge? That thought Is a
witness never suborned? That the echo
one so fain would grasp repeats immor-
tally In every vo.celess atom, in every
viewless, measureless length of space?
Lived ever in our consciousness more
surely, more potently, our murdered
leader than he lives today, though nc
more living In the flash than tn radiant
denizen of star? Were days of agony
and nights haunted by the deadly rankle
of the assassins bullet all the compen.
sation wrung from a life of untold use.
fulness and unceasng toll? Ask the
mother If the thrill she felt when sirst
her baby boy chung to her must be LAID
down with the last throb of her pool
heart? Ask the soldier who guessed hi:
''NS sA'AOuSAi tut SllOk6 up the Dan
nered stars, If the comrade who marched
by his side was lost to him forever wher
the light went out of his eyes? Ask tn,
wife II that one earth-look was the last
ASK futurity If thinker philosopher poet
orator, statesman, hero and friend ha:
gone into the everlasting dark? All, no
with US abtdes the loss, but Gods uni
verse Is a universe of compensation. AND
somehow, somewhere there must be al
equivalent gain.
And SO we bid our President for. Will,
farewell. I'VE give him not to the gray,
ana the GLOOM" but to the history tina
he illumined by his genius, and to tn,
nope Of the dawn which dwelIs beyon,
the sunset. The splendid intellect will
ITS endowments of knowledge and its at
tributes of power went out from il
! nesniy house-went out with the tide
But the Eternal tide which ebbed her
flowed elsewhere. The spirit with all it
garnered riches of wisdom, with its per
sonality beatified but not absorbed b,
the new light. sailed out of this earthl,