Mr. Chairman: That is a noble and beautiful ancient sentiment which admonishes us to speak well of the dead. Therefore let us try to do this for our late friend who is mentioned in the text. How full of life, and strength, and confidence and pride he was, but a few short months ago; and alas, how dead he is today! We that are gathered at these obsequies, we that are here to bury this dust, and sing the parting hymn, and say the comforting word to the widow and the orphan now left destitute and sorrowing by him, their support and stay in the post office, the consulship, the navy yard and the Indian reservation—we knew him, right well and familiarly we knew him; and so it is meet that we, and not strangers, should take upon ourselves these last offices, lest his reputation suffer through explanations of him which might not explain him happily, and justifications of him which might not justify him conclusively. First, it is right and well that we censure him, in those few minor details wherein some slight censure may seem to be demanded; to the end that when we come to speak his praises, the good he did may shine with all the more intolerable a brightness by the contrast.
To begin, then, with the twilight side of his character: he was a slave; not a turbulent and troublesome, but a meek and docile, cringing and fawning, dirt-eating and dirt-preferring slave; and Party was his lord and master. He had no mind of his own, no will of his own, no opinion of his own; body and soul he was the property and chattel of that master, to be bought and sold, bartered, traded, given away, at his nod and beck—branded, mutilated, boiled in oil, if need were. And the desire of his heart was to make of a nation of freemen a nation of slaves like to himself; to bring to pass a time when it might be said that “All are for the Party, and none are for the State”; and the labors of his diligent hand and brain did finally compass his desire. For he fooled the people with plausible new readings of familiar old principles, and beguiled them to the degradation of their manhood and the destruction of their liberties. He taught them that the only true freedom of thought is to think as the party thinks; that the only true freedom of speech is to speak as the party dictates; that the only righteous toleration is toleration of what the party approves; that patriotism, duty, citizenship, devotion to country, loyalty to the flag, are all summed up in loyalty to the party. Save the party, uphold the party, make the party victorious, though all things else go to ruin and the grave.
In these few little things, he who lies here cold in death was faulty. Say we no more concerning them, but over them draw the veil of a charitable oblivion; for the good which he did far overpasses this little evil. With grateful hearts we may unite in praises and thanksgivings to him for one majestic fact of his life: that in his zeal for the cause, he finally overdid it. The precious result was that a change came; and that change remains, and will endure; and on its banner is written—
“Not all are for the Party—now some are for the State.”
November 1884