The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1910-09-01
JOHN BROWN PARK
GIVEN TO KANSAS
Address by Theodore Roosevelt
Closes the Ceremonies.
GREAT DAY FOR OSAWAToMIE
Standing Where Battle Of osawatomIe
Was Fought, Ex-President Gives
His Ideas of Freedom and
Good Government.


Osawatomie, Kan, Aug. 31.-This
was Osawatomie's great day, for
which the citizens have been prepar-
ing for months-the closing day of the
dedication ceremonies at John Brown
park. Today the park of 22 acres,
on the site of the battle of Osawato-
mie, fought on Aug. 30, 1856, was for
mally presented to the state, and the
dedicatory Grafton was delivered by
Theodore Roosevelt.
Preliminary exercises were held
yesterday, and the program was re-
sumed at 10:30 this morning with
concert by the Thirteenth Regiment
band, followed by drill by troops of
the Kansas National guard and the
regular army. Meanwhile Col. Roose-
velts train had arrived and all the
thousands of people assembled here
went to the station to greet him.
After dinner all gathered in the new
park, where there was parade by
the soldiery, the Grand Army
Woman's Relief corps and civic so
cieties and another band concert.
Then, after vocal solo by Miss Eliz-
abeth Uhls and an invocation, the
president of the board of trustees,
Cora M. Deputy, formally presented
the park to the state on behalf of the
Woman's Relief corps of Kansas,
which bought the ground. Governor
Stubs responded gracefully for the
state, and then the chairman, ]. B.
Remington, introduced the distin-
guished orator of the day, former
President Roosevelt.
oratlon by Colonel Roosevelt.
Col Roosevelt stood silent and smil-
ing until the storm of applause had
died down, and then spoke as follows:
There have been two great crises in
our country's history; first when 1t was
formed, and then again when it was per-
petuated. The formative period included
not merely the Revolutionary war, but
the creation and adoption of the Consti-
under it. Then came sixty years during
which we spread across the continent
years of vital growth, but of growth with
out rather than growth within. Then
eliminated in the Civil war, the period
OF terrible struggle upon the issue of
which depended the Justification of all
that we had done earlier and which
marked the second great period of growth
and development within. The name of
John Brown will be forever associated
with this second period Of the Nations
history and Kansas was the theater
upon which the first act of the second of
our great National life dramas was play
ed. 1t was the result of the struggle in
Kansas which determined that our coun-
try should be in deed as as well as in
name devoted to both union and freedom,
that the great experiment of democratic
government on a National scale should
succeed and not fail. It was a heroic
struggle; and as is inevitable with all
such struggles, 1t had also a dark and
terrible side. Very much was done of
good, and much also of evil; and, as was
inevitable in such a period of revolution,
often the same man did both good and
evil. For our great good fortune as a
Nation, we, the people of the United
States as whole can now afford to for
get the evil, or at least to remember it
without bitterness, and to fix our eyes
with pride on the good that was accom-
plished. Even in ordinary times there
are very few of us who do not see the
problems of life as through a glass,
darkly; and when the glass is clouded by
the murk Of furious popular passion, the
vision of the best and the bravest is
dimmed. Looking back, we are all of us
now able to do justice to the valor and
the disinterestedness and the love of the
right as to each 1t was given to see the
right, shown both by the men Of the north
and the men of the south in that contest
which was finally decided by the attitude
of the west. We can admire the heroic
ell 1nIF i
shown alike by the men who wore the
blue and the men who wore the gray;
and our sadness that such men should
have had to fight one another is temp
cred by the glad knowledge that ever
hereafter their descendants shall he found
fighting side by side, struggling in peace
as well as in war for the uplift of their
common country, all alike resolute to
raise to the highest pitch of honor and
usefulness the Nation to which they all
belong AS for the veterans of the Grand
Army Of the Republic, they deserve honor
and recognition such as Is paid to no
other citizens of the Republic; for to
them the Republic owes its all, for to
them it owes its very existence.
Application Of the Lesson.
I do not speak of this struggle of the
past merely from the historic standpoint.
Our interest is primarily in the applca-
ton today Of the lessons taught by the
contest of half a century ago. It is of
little use for US to pay lip loyalty to the
mighty men of the past unless we sin
cerely endeavor to apply to the problems
of the present precisely the qualities
which in other crises enabled the men of
that day to meet those crises. 1t is half
melancholy and half amusing to see the
way in which well-meaning people gather
to do honor to the men who, in company
with John Brown, and under the lead of
Abraham Lincoln, faced and solved the
great problems of the nineteenth CEN
tury while at the same time these same
good people nervously shrink from or
frantically denounce those who are try
ing to meet the problems Of the twentieth
in the spirit which was accountable for
the successful solution of the problems of
Lincoln's time.
owe so much, the man to whom we owe
the most is, Of course. Lincoln. Part of
our debt to him is because he forecast
our present struggle and saw the way out.
He said:
IT hold that while man exists it is
his duty to improve not only his own
condition but to assist in ameliorating
mankind" And again, Labor is prior
to and independent Of capital capital is
only the fruit of labor, and could never
have existed but for labor. Labor is the
superior of capital and deserves much the
higher consideration. Capital has it's
rights which are as worthy of protection
as any other rights. Nor should this