The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-03-21

The following paper was read by J.
Edgar Tiff at the celebration held in
honor of Lawrence Dunbar, the negro
poet:
We are SO burdened in this day
with a great array of statistics and
reports of the armies of organized So
| cleties for everything that we are for
getting the poet The shelves of our
public libraries are silent and undis-
| turbed in the poets section. The
priceless and immortal treasures from
| the dim past speak to only the few
who still have poetry and truth in
| their heatrs We are neglecting these
treasures for educational fads, based
| upon a kind of insane worship of the
worst liar of all, adulterated Stats
| tics.
If you love the blooming rose, the
| wild birds call, and the sweet assur-
ance of things found in nature, your
fussy nuisance of neighbOr, who
! wants to reform you, not because he
| loves you but in order to make himself
a shining light, overwhelms you with
tracts, pamphlets and cart loads of
statistics and government reports to
| show you how vile you are If you come
! not his way We are so stuffy over
students with statistical dope that
| everybody has statistical indigestion
| and Peruna has an immense sale. We
are so filling them with political
| economy and religious brick-bats with
! out straw, that we seldom see the old
time men and women of the royal
| type who were free, independent, out
| spoken. liberty-loving and generous
| hearted We are time servers, haters
of men. schemers-a anything to pro-
mote the flow of dollars inwards to-
| ward our own pockets.
Where Are Poets?
! If we go on in this path we shall
utterly forget the poets. Why, there
are no great poets now! We shall
i forget the poets who stood for truth,
/ for liberty. for love, for justice, for
! humanity, and children will ask:
| PA, what kind of an animal was a
poet? Our history speaks of such,
Was there ever such thing? Our
| teacher says that poets belong to the
! age of Santa Claus and fairies and
! not to this age of facts and Stats
ties
The various races of men have been
! proud of their literature and justly
| proud of their achievements in every
! field of human advancement. The
; great northern races, both restless
and fearless. have handed the torch
! of light and liberty from one genera
; ton to another. and have laid their
dead in every land and buried their
: sons beneath the waves OF every sea.
| The glory Of Greece lies in her
! D cts. Shakespeare gives more re
nown to England than all of her wars
! or conquests. Marble and brass
| crumble and perish, but the poet re-
! mains.
! Slaves Became Poets.
! In both Rome and Greece slaves
became poets. counseiors and philoso-
! piers. because you cannot shackle hui
man thought. You may so terroriZe
men that they hide in caves and dare
not whisper to themselves what they
think, but within the court Of the
mysterious brain there come dreams
and visions which some day pass into
! laws and constitutions and men de
| fend them with their lives.
| And races of men basking in the
sunlight of their glorious ancestors,
quoting noble thoughts from the poets
| and parading the humanity of their
religion, have sometimes grown cruel
and hard, drawn sharp lines and
driven from the pale of their civiiza-
ton those whom they choose 70 call
! 'barbarians.
We Americans are given to conceit.
Every man of us knows that he could
! run newspaper better than its edi
! tor: every one Of us feels that if we
were only president of the United
States how different il would be; and
we all kno what we could write bet
ter poetry than Shakespeare if we
cared to waste the time.
We are all good judges. too; but
We Judge poetry as We do horses. If
string of verses is not spawned
knock-kneed or string-halted and trots
or joys along smoothly. then it is good
poetry. But poetry is something more
than this. Poetry as the poet Shelley
| said is the best expression Of the
best man in his best moments.
Poetry Still Survives.
There are many true poets among
us who can find no word to express
the uplifting of the soul. There are
many sweet songs unSung and many
great poems dreamed, but never
voiced. There are men and women
among us of deep, musical and har-
monious natures who cannot play
upon instruments or sing songs. and
instruments, sing hymns and write
verses who have neither music, nor
| love, nor human sympathy in their
! souls.
So we may safely say that not all
of the great and good not all of the
sublime and beautiful sentiments of
humanity are expressed. God and his
( angels alone must hear the best and
noblest outpourings of the souls of
the poor and humble and unknown
Think of the patient and lonely that
are patient and virtuous in silence
Think of those heroic beings who bat
| tie on fields unknown to us and never
/ conn plain; who make no parade. who
have no brass bands. no housetop
| proclamations and no public praise
The best poems are never penned
! The best songs are never sung.
! But the true poet expresses for us
what We feel in our best moments,
and when we pick up a favorite vol
ume We love it because. as Lincoln
said, we find ourselves in it,
Nearly every race has it's back
ground of ancestral literature. Eng
land had her Chaucer, Ben Jonson,
Shakespeare, Dickens, George Eliot,
Tennyson, and down to our Riley in
1 L.