Dowagiac, Mich., January 25, 1893.
LADIES and Gentlemen: Nothing is nobler than to plant the flower of
gratitude on the grave of a generous man--of one who labored for the
good of all--whose hands were open and whose heart was full.
Praise for the noble dead is an inspiration for the noble living.
Loving words sow seeds of love in every gentle heart. Appreciation is
the soil and climate of good and generous deeds.
We are met to-night not to pay, but to acknowledge a debt of gratitude
to one who lived and labored here--who was the friend of all and who for
many years was the providence of the poor. To one who left to those who
knew him best, the memory of countless loving deeds--the richest legacy
that man can leave to man.
We are here to dedicate this monument to the stainless memory of Philo
D. Beckwith--one of the kings of men.
This monument--this perfect theatre--this beautiful house of
cheerfulness and joy--this home and child of all the arts--this temple
where the architect, the sculptor and painter united to build and
decorate a stage whereon the drama with a thousand tongues will tell
the frailties and the virtues of the human race, and music with her
thrilling voice will touch the source of happy tears.
This is a fitting monument to the man whose memory we honor--to one,
who broadening with the years, outgrew the cruel creeds, the heartless
dogmas of his time--to one who passed from superstition to science--from
religion to reason--from theology to humanity--from slavery to
freedom--from the shadow of fear to the blessed light of love and
courage. To one who believed in intellectual hospitality--in the perfect
freedom of the soul, and hated tyranny, in every form, with all his
heart.
To one whose head and hands were in partnership constituting the firm
of Intelligence and Industry, and whose heart divided the profits with
his fellow-men. To one who fought the battle of life alone, without the
aid of place or wealth, and yet grew nobler and gentler with success.
To one who tried to make a heaven here and who believed in the blessed
gospel of cheerfulness and love--of happiness and hope.
And it is fitting, too, that this monument should be adorned with the
sublime faces, wrought in stone, of the immortal dead--of those who
battled for the rights of man--who broke the fetters of the slave--of
those who filled the minds of men with poetry, art, and light--of
Voltaire, who abolished torture in France and who did more for liberty
than any other of the sons of men--of Thomas Paine, whose pen did as
much as any sword to make the New World free--of Victor Hugo, who wept
for those who weep--of Emerson, a worshiper of the Ideal, who filled
the mind with suggestions of the perfect--of Goethe, the
poet-philosopher--of Whitman, the ample, wide as the sky--author of the
tenderest, the most pathetic, the sublimest poem that this continent has
produced--of Shakespeare, the King of all--of Beethoven, the divine,--of
Chopin and Verdi and of Wagner, grandest of them all, whose music
satisfies the heart and brain and fills imagination's sky--of George
Eliot, who wove within her brain the purple robe her genius wears--of
George Sand, subtle and sincere, passionate and free--and with
these--faces of those who, on the stage, have made the mimic world as
real as life and death.
Beneath the loftiest monuments may be found ambition's worthless dust,
while those who lived the loftiest lives are sleeping now in unknown
graves.
It may be that the bravest of the brave who ever fell upon the field of
ruthless war, was left without a grave to mingle slowly with the land he
saved.
But here and now the Man and Monument agree, and blend like sounds that
meet and melt in melody--a monument for the dead--a blessing for the
living--a memory of tears--a prophecy of joy.
Fortunate the people where this good man lived, for they are all his
heirs--and fortunate for me that I have had the privilege of laying this
little laurel leaf upon his unstained brow.
And now, speaking for those he loved--for those who represent the
honored dead--I dedicate this home of mirth and song--of poetry and
art--to the memory of Philo D. Beckwith--a true philosopher--a real
philanthropist.