At a meeting in aid of the sufferers by yellow fever in Memphis
(Tennessee) and Shreveport (Louisiana), held at the rooms of the
Board of Trade in Boston, at which the Mayor, Hon. Henry L. Pierce,
presided, after remarks by Mr. Pierce and Hon. Alexander H. Rice,
Mr. Sumner said:--
MR. MAYOR,--I have come less for speech than to show by my presence
here the sincere interest I feel in the present meeting. For what can I
say to prompt the generosity of Boston merchants? They understand this
call, and their hearts have already answered it.
It is hard to hear of suffering anywhere without longing to relieve
it. But happily now all impediment of distance is removed; and such
are the facilities of communication that before the set of sun your
contributions will brighten the faces of those distant sufferers. Do
not think of distance. It is nothing. If Boston should be startled by
hearing to-day that pestilence had appeared in one of our new-found
possessions, as in Charlestown,--or even in Brookline, which will not
be annexed,--we should feel the ties of neighborhood. But Memphis
and Shreveport are neighbors by telegraph and steam, and the grander
ties of a common country, which the ancient Roman orator called the
“great charity comprehending all.”[228] Besides, there is that other
more touching neighborhood which springs from suffering,--for I do not
forget the divine hymn which teaches that
“Our neighbor is the suffering man,
Though at the farthest pole.”[229]
In these latter days, my friends, distress has come less from
pestilence than from conflagration. The Fire Fiend has been more active
than the other demon, and property has suffered more than life. Such
are the favoring conditions of climate and the general security of
health in our country, that we are rarely disturbed by contagion. But
it has come at last with the “reaper whose name is Death.”
To arrest this contagion, to help those exposed to its ravages, we
perform a simple duty, as when we direct water upon the bursting
blaze. Pestilence is a conflagration, and human life is the sacrifice.
In this illustration I bring home to Boston merchants the urgency of
the present call. Too well you know the terrible scene, when your
magnificent and well-filled warehouses, borrowed in style and form from
Venetian palaces, were seized and devoured by the flames. But other
flames, not less vindictive, are now seizing and devouring fellow-men,
our fellow-countrymen, in fair and beautiful places where all smiles
but the benefactor Health. Let us do what we can to help the benefactor
resume his sway.
At the close of Mr. Sumner’s remarks, measures were taken for the
immediate receiving of subscriptions.