The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-08-05

Emancipation day was enthusiastic
cally observed by the negroes of the
Twin Cities yesterday at Mills farm,
four miles from Hastings. Two steam
er loads of colOred people, numbering
between 500 and 900, were taken there
in the morning and afternoon, and the
day was spent with music and games.
In the evening addresses were deliver
ed by Col. c. T. Trowbridge and sew
eral prominent colored people. The ora
ton of the day was given by F. L. Nc
Chez, who spoke in part as follows:
Day to Celebrate /,
ct is well that we, the negroes of
the United States, should celebrate the
day of emancipation, sacred in the
memory of Haiti; it is especially Wen
that we now celebrate it, for dark days
are being seen by the people who on
this day now more than three-quar-
tiers of a century ago, received their
freedom. And then, again, the negroes
of our own land are seeing days
as dark as any perhaps they
have heretofore seen. Freedom indeed
reigns in both countries. The blessings
of liberty are proclaimed to be free
and untrammeled to the citizens of
Haiti and to the negroes of America.
1t would be idle to celebrate this day
did we not gaze into the mirror of
things that are, to see reflected there
the things that have been and from
this learn as best we can the things
that are to be. Fertile, indeed, must
be the mind that can lay aside all 9TH
er thoughts except those that bring
comfort and joy on such a day as this,
for the memory of the past ever
crowds into the present, and thoughts
of bygone days come forward either to
sweeten or make bitter the cup we
would this day drink of. 1t would be
- hnNv Tod
that our country might enjoy the
blessings of freedom and liberty did
we not contemplate the cause for
which they offered their life, and how
far we are permitted to enjoy the
blessings for which they died, and why
we are denied any such blessings.
Times have remarkably changed
since the first day of our free
dom; the men that shaped the affairs
of our country then, who seemed to
make and control public thought and
opinion, are, alas, no more. The ia
theirs of our institutions that founded
the splendid government under which
we are governed, have gone long since
to their eternal home, and, alas, the
rush of time and the spirit of the new
age seemed to have showed from the
field of action the principles for which
they fought.
The spirit of the great Jefferson
that permeated the hearts and quick
ened the cOnsciences of the men who
signed the great Declaration of indie
pendence, seems now to sleep with him
in the grave where his mortal body
lay.
Emancipator's Are Gone.
''The fiery eloquence, the teeming
thought of John Adams, whose appeal
gave courage to those who despaired
of our ability to maintain the great
principles upon which Jefferson built
the foundation of the country, is still,
even as is the tongue that spoke the
words. The potent influence of Wash
ington's teaching, who led the armies
of the fathers of our fathers, of our
country's fathers, has gone with him
to the everlasting rest. Even Sumner
has been gathered with them to his
home beyond. The immortal Lincoln,
who penned the emancipation procla-
nation, who paved the way for the
execution of the same and gave it to
the world, together with LoVejoy,
Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garr1-
son, have crossed life's last stream
and have pitched their tents with old
John Brown in the beyond.
In the days of the great emancipa-
tor, the first dawn of freedom to the
American negro, the student of the
cOuntry's future and it's destiny, look
ed beyond the horizon that closed in
the then present and believed he saw
in the future a time when all men
would be the common equals of other
men, an estate in which that high
Americanism would be so strong and
predominant that the very germs that
made possible the institution of slav-
cry would be consumed in the fire of
the faith in the immortal Declaration
of Independence-the common equal
ity of American citizens. But, alas
i-in
hath dawned, no signs now upon the
horizon would warrant the belief that
the night of oppression will pass away
forever, unless indeed the nation must
have, as Lincoln asked it would have