The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-06-01
WALT WHITMAN'S
VIRTUES GLORIFIED
Orators Pay Tribute to His
Many Sided Character at
Centenary Exercises.
AHEAD OF HIS OWN TIME
Hailed Both as Radical and
Conservative-Praise for
His Great Idealism.

The Rev. DR.. John Haynes Holmes
and Thomas b. Harmed JUST could no,
agree at the Hotel Brevoort yesterday
afternoon when the Walt Whitman Fell
lowship International took oratorical no.
tice of the fact that the day was the
one hundredth anniversary OF the poets
birth DR.. Holmes insisted that Whit
man was "the most conservative person
In the world"-no matter what the intel
lectually cross eyed have drought to the
contrary-and likened him TO Rain,
waldo Emerson and the other New Enr-
land transcendentalists But Mr.. Harmed
who was long Whitman's intimate friend
and who was at his bedside when he
died, declared that he was "a radical OF
the radicals" 's. = y
There's no question about that" said
ar; Harmed emphasizing his last word
ana looking up over his spectaoles. bell
ilgerently, as though expecting to be con.
tradicted and as though he didn't know
mat Or. Holmes had gone and hadn't
heard him say that (much as he re-
GREETED IT. he would be unable to stav
and listen to the other speakers. aa hs
had a date uptown. =
Whatever the audience NAV have
thought regarding these divergent Views
concerning the keynote of whitman,s
cneracter' there can be little doubt but
that DR.. Holmes captiyated N corn.
pieteiy when he referred. TO the mat.
flowing beard like the clouds of feayen ).
II was agreed that the smile was espe-
cially happy In tts phrasing and that one
old not need to, have actually known
whitman. but only to have seen his pio-
lures, TO be etruck at once with its felic-
ttous aptness = -
II was admitted by DR.. Holmes that
Wait Whitman usually had been consid-
eleo q radical and that he had been de-
nouhceo. as ne said with feeling. In a
way that men ahead Of the procession''
usually are denounced. II was para
doxicaL DR.. Holmes said. that present
DAY conservatives are about the 6nly
ciass or persons who stin withhold ac-
claim to the poet
Believer I'm IndividuaIism.
He was an egotist only from the
standpoint OF those who didn't under
stand him." asserted DR.. Holmes. "He
hao some OF the supreme egotism of the
Satarene. but there was also something
oeeper and higher in him than his own
ponsonaHty. He was interested In HIM
sen because he believed In the divinity
OF personality ana loved mankind. and
ne simply CHANGED TO know himself best.
II was through no accident that Emerson
was the nrst great American Of our own
Gay 70 appreciate Whitman and to. un-
oerstand him. Different as they were In,
many ways. in religion these two. men
belonged together. They both believed
tnat individualism Is the one holy thing.
whitman was ahead Of his own rem
erauon with his social dreams. There
10 no liberalism left In our time as COM
pared with the great years of the nina
tecnth century. Some men talk and TALL
ana talk but, when II comes to living"
Dr. Holmes plainly Indicated his utter
oissust as to what happens then and
ssIo' without mincing words In the least.
mat me liberal party had been wiped
on the map" and that although there
was much liberal talk in America the
SPIRIT OF liberalism was dead here. .
whitman didn't have any philoso-
ply and there was no clearly Thought
out system Of religious teaching in his
poems; went on DR.. Holmes. "He was
q disciple OF profound emotion and was.
oL course poet, He was a God intox-
lcated man and was drunk with the
spirit or God. It Is only when one
meets such men as Whitman and Jesus
that one realizes. how silly are they who
% uot the existence OF God.
lie was triumphant optimist regard
ing this world and the next and never
oouoted the human race and the possi-
o!iity OF its perfection He was so old
IL shioned that he actually believed in
INC immortality OF the soul and that his