[Speech of Ex-Governor Richard Oglesby at the banquet of the Fellowship
Club, Chicago, September 9, 1894, on the occasion of the Harvest-Home
Festival. The Toast-master was Franklin H. Head, and the toast that he
gave to each speaker was, "What I Know About Farming." In the report
by Volney W. Foster, member of the Club, it is recorded that the
Governor rose slowly, after being called upon by the toast-master, and
was seemingly waiting for an inspiration. He looked deliberately upon
the harvest decorations of the room and finally his eyes seemed to
rest upon the magnificent stalks of corn that adorned the walls. He
then slowly and impressively paid the following impromptu tribute to
the corn.]
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--The corn, the corn, the corn, that
in its first beginning and its growth has furnished aptest illustration
of the tragic announcement of the chiefest hope of man. If he die he
shall surely live again. Planted in the friendly but sombre bosom of the
mother earth it dies. Yea, it dies the second death, surrendering up
each trace of form and earthly shape until the outward tide is stopped
by the reacting vital germ which, breaking all the bonds and cerements
of its sad decline, comes bounding, laughing into life and light, the
fittest of all the symbols that make certain promise of the fate of man.
And so it died and then it lived again. And so my people died. By some
unknown, uncertain and unfriendly fate, I found myself making my first
journey into life from conditions as lowly as those surrounding that
awakening, dying, living, infant germ. It was in those days when I, a
simple boy, had wandered from Indiana to Springfield, that I there met
the father of this good man [Joseph Jefferson] whose kind and gentle
words to me were as water to a thirsty soul, as the shadow of a rock to
weary man. I loved his father then, I love the son now. Two full
generations have been taught by his gentleness and smiles, and tears
have quickly answered to the command of his artistic mind. Long may he
live to make us laugh and cry, and cry and laugh by turns as he may
choose to move us.
But now again my mind turns to the glorious corn. See it! Look on its
ripening, waving field! See how it wears a crown, prouder than monarch
ever wore, sometimes jauntily; and sometimes after the storm the
dignified survivors of the tempest seem to view a field of slaughter and
to pity a fallen foe. And see the pendant caskets of the corn-field
filled with the wine of life, and see the silken fringes that set a form
for fashion and for art. And now the evening comes and something of a
time to rest and listen. The scudding clouds conceal the half and then
reveal the whole of the moonlit beauty of the night, and then the gentle
winds make heavenly harmonies on a thousand-thousand harps that hang
upon the borders and the edges and the middle of the field of ripening
corn, until my very heart seems to beat responsive to the rising and the
falling of the long melodious refrain. The melancholy clouds sometimes
make shadows on the field and hide its aureate wealth, and now they
move, and slowly into sight there comes the golden glow of promise for
an industrious land. Glorious corn, that more than all the sisters of
the field wears tropic garments. Nor on the shore of Nilus or of Ind
does nature dress her forms more splendidly. My God, to live again that
time when for me half the world was good and the other half unknown! And
now again, the corn, that in its kernel holds the strength that shall
(in the body of the man refreshed) subdue the forest and compel response
from every stubborn field, or, shining in the eye of beauty make
blossoms of her cheeks and jewels of her lips and thus make for man the
greatest inspiration to well-doing, the hope of companionship of that
sacred, warm and well-embodied soul, a woman.
Aye, the corn, the Royal Corn, within whose yellow heart there is of
health and strength for all the nations. The corn triumphant, that with
the aid of man hath made victorious procession across the tufted plain
and laid foundation for the social excellence that is and is to be. This
glorious plant, transmuted by the alchemy of God, sustains the warrior
in battle, the poet in song, and strengthens everywhere the thousand
arms that work the purposes of life. Oh that I had the voice of song, or
skill to translate into tones the harmonies, the symphonies and
oratorios that roll across my soul, when standing sometimes by day and
sometimes by night upon the borders of this verdant sea, I note a world
of promise, and then before one-half the year is gone I view its full
fruition and see its heaped gold await the need of man. Majestic,
fruitful, wondrous plant! Thou greatest among the manifestations of the
wisdom and love of God, that may be seen in all the fields or upon the
hillsides or in the valleys!