Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-06-02
MEMORIAL DAY EXERCISES.
Continued From Page Eleven)

unsuccessful? And yet, say the re.
formers, i'm this practical, hustling
money getting age, of what value t.
young man is an imperfect knOW!-
edge of two dead languages, and q
familiarity with certain ancient myths
and legends? Why fill his mind with
idle tales of the days when human
emotions and passions were persona
fled and sometimes deified ~ her
from the realms OF Neptune, God OF
the sea, love energies as the Goddess
Venus; when Aurora. Goddess of the
morn, is drawn by winged steeds from
east to west: when the Trojan wal
and the wanderings of Aeneas arose
from the bribery of shepherd youth
who umpired Goddesses' beauty
show; and when PlutO's realms Of
Death, divided from Life by the River
Styx, were guarded by the three
headed Cerberus? l will not discuss
the question or try to show how the
worlds life and language and litera-
ture have been enriched by the
classics, but I will pass to another
and modern instance of the point
wish to emphacise.
You have followed the career. of
Governor Hughes of New York, who
is today very much in the public eye.
From the unknown lawyer. to the
cool. clear-headed reasoner and
lecturer at a law school; then back
again to the practise of the law in
New York City, amid some eight or
nine thousand competitors; then.
partly by chance, partly through his
connections, and partly through his
own standing, and as a wholly doubt
full experiment. called with but a few
weeks preparation into the great New
York insurance investigation as
counsel for the Armstrong legislative
committee. Day after day he stood
there. an intellectual giant, with that
prodigious mind and memory which
could absorb and retain and marshal
in orderly array the facts of great
and intricate subject. With high pur
pose and cool, merciless logic, he pit
ted his brain against, all the skill and
cunning of the ablest Insurance men
of this country-and won. 1t was my
privilege to hear a portion of that ex-
animation. and l realized that l was
in the presence of a great sman.
need not remind you of his subsequent
brilliant career as Governor of New
York. The nation knows him as Il
statesman. By many people he is re
garded as a kind Of cold and intellec-
tual machine And yet, what is the
class Of literature that he most en-
joys in his leisure moments? Not
learned scientific treatises or works on
political economy or the theory of
government. 6ut the stories of that
master Of romantic fiction. Alexander
Dumas. He delights to read and re-
read those tales of the Three Muske-
teers-of the noble Athos, the refined
Aramis, the boasting. good hearted
Porthos, and the shrcwd, though i'm
pulsve D'Artagnan. Captivating tales
are these of chivalry and romance.
Is Governor Hughes fondness for
them sign of weakness?
Take another illustration nearer
home One spring day in 1904, Gen.
eral Baker stood in the Court House
In this city before the appraisers who
were to value the plant of the Au-
gusta Water Company. For seven
hours. with but the noon-times inter-
ruption he summed up the law and
facts of that long protracted hearing
i'm an address which was more than
an argument. 1t was d mastery and
argument. but it was also
an Grafton. studded with splendid
gems of thought. and rivalling in
structure and quality the efforts of
Cicero or Demosthenes The next
| called upon him with n
friend, and found him engaged, anl
intereSted-in what? In
the study of the birds in the trees sur
his home.
Now. bear with me for moment
longer while | give you two further
of the idea | am trying
to develop. They are extracts from
public addresses of two men who
served with gallantry in the Civil
War The first is from an after din
ncr speech of General Horace Porter
in 1887, in response to the toast THE
Citizen Soldier" Beneath his quiet
humor or rather, pervading it. is
tribute to the sturdy patriotism and
efficiency of the New England soldier,
which l think will meet with your ap-
prevail. This is what General Porte
said:
Il allude to that Citizen Soldier who
breathed the spirit of old Miles
but had the additional advan-
taGe of always being able to speak for
himself; who came to the front close
cropped. clean shaven. newly baptized
freshly vaccnated. pocket i'm his shirt
musket on his shoulder, ready to do any
thing. from squirrel hunting up to man
slaughter in the first degree. He felt
that with a single rush he could carry
away two spans of barbed-wire fence
without scratching himself If too short
sighted to see the enemy, he would go
nearer: if lame. he would make this an
excuse to disobey an order to retreat: if
he had but one stocking. he would take
1t off his foot in wet weather and wrap
it around the lock of his gun: and as to
he would keep on the march
as long as he had upper garments enough
left to wad gun, or neither garments
enough to flag train with. He was the
last man In a retreat. the first man in an
enemy'S smoke house. When he wanted
fuel lie took only the top rail of the fence.
and kept on taking the top rail till there
was none of that fence left standing.
The New England soldier knew every
thing that was between the covers of
books. from light infantry tactics to the
new version of the scriptures"
Though the passage which I have
chosen for my final illustration will
ring Familiarity in your ears. l offer no
apology 1t needs none. l once heard
Col Robert IngersolI say Of Shake
sneare that "wordS SpranE from his