I have always thought that New York's Centennial celebration in 1889 was
largely responsible for the patriotic societies of men and women which
have swept the country.
Everybody was willing at the time of the celebration to sit for two
entire days on rude seats under the April sun while the evidences of the
power and achievements of our great country passed in review before us.
We remember the military pomp of the first day, the dignified carriage
of the governors of our United States as they bared their heads in
gracious acknowledgment of the cheers of the people, the triumphant
blare of trumpets, the stirring strains of martial music, the glitter
of bayonets, the long, living line, which was only a small part of the
nation's bulwark against its possible foes.
Then the schools and colleges, then the gorgeous civic parade and
the illustrations and representatives of the trades, occupations, and
nationalities that have found a home in our broad land.
All this passed before us and is but dimly remembered. No permanent
impression was made by the great display. Little remains except the
recollection that there were millions and millions of people lining our
pavements, that the show was hardly adequate to the expectation of these
people, that it was a time of many mistakes and much discomfort.
But this pageant was not all of the Centennial. A number of men of taste
and feeling had conceived the happy idea of collecting revolutionary
relics, papers, and portraits, and exhibiting them in the Metropolitan
Opera House.
We expected to be interested in these, and some of us gave time and
thought to the task of making the collection as choice as possible. But
we were unprepared for the effect of the exhibition upon the minds of
the beholders. We filed along the galleries of the Metropolitan Opera
House and mused over the papers of "The Cincinnati"; the books, few
and well worn; pocket dictionaries with bookplates, candlesticks that
had held the tallow dips in difficult times; silver caddies that had
done duty in the "tea-cup times"; pewter platters that had served many
a frugal meal at Valley Forge; the curtains that had shaded the bed of
Lafayette; the piano-cover embroidered by sweet Nellie Custis; pathetic
empty garments, the silken coat of George Washington, the brown silk
gown of Martha Washington. We remembered at what price the glories of
the preceding days had been purchased. We lived over the early times
of anxiety, privation, and danger. Raising our eyes to the walls, we
encountered the pictured eyes of the men and women whose spirit, behind
our little army, had compelled events and given dignity and importance
to our Revolutionary history.
It was difficult to associate thought, learning, courage, foresight, and
statesmanship with those placid faces. Artists of that day presented
only the calm, impassive features of their sitters. There was George
Washington, serene in every pose, dress, and age; Alexander Hamilton,
Richard Henry Lee, keen-eyed Patrick Henry, Martha Washington, Elizabeth
Washington, fair Nelly Custis, dark-eyed Frances Bland, whose patriot
brother fills a lost grave in Trinity churchyard. These and scores of
others looked down upon us from the walls of our great opera-house.
And yet it is this, and this only, of all the pageant that made a
living and lasting impression upon the minds of the people. Pondering
upon the associations connected with these relics and portraits of the
Revolutionary time, and rereading the histories connected with them,
an impulse was given which is now thrilling our people to the extremest
bounds of our country, and which will result in our taking proper steps
to acquire and preserve all the localities connected with the struggle
for our independence.
I was keenly interested in the celebration. I knew the president, Mr.
Henry Marquand, and took upon myself the duty of collecting portraits
from Virginia—of Patrick Henry, members of the Washington family, Nelly
Custis, Frances Bland, and others. I cherish an engraved resolution
of thanks adopted by the committee, stating that such thanks were
"especially due" for my "valuable cooperation in the work of the Loan
Exhibition of portraits."
The influence of the feeling inspired at the time of the Centennial at
once expressed itself in the formation of the societies of patriotic men
and women now so numerous in this country. I assisted in the foundation
of these societies—the Preservation of the Virginia Antiquities, the
association owning Jamestown; the Mary Washington Memorial Association;
the Daughters of the American Revolution; and the National Society of
the Colonial Dames of America. The duty of organizing a chapter of the
Daughters of the American Revolution was assigned to me, and I named it
"The New York City Chapter." Mrs. Vincenzo Botta was my first member,
and Mrs. Martha Lamb, honorary life member. I was much in conference
with Mrs. Martha Lamb when she was helping to organize the Colonial
Dames—and I was early, heart and soul, interested in the Daughters of
the American Revolution. Of Jamestown and the noble society which owns
it—everybody knows. I managed a great ball at the White Sulphur Springs
to help build a monument over Mary Washington's grave. The governors of
New York and of Virginia each sent flags—from the state of my birth and
the state of my adoption. General Lee conducted the Mary Washington of
the hour. The Virginia beauties wore their great grandmother's gowns
of quilted petticoat and brocade, and I received a large sum for the
monument.
For the Mary Washington monument Mrs. Charles Avery Doremus, with Mrs.
Wilbur Bloodgood, gave a beautiful play, for which the Secretary of
the Navy lent me colors enough to drape the entire house. I cherish
the permit I received to use these colors. It was signed "George
Dewey"! Patti, the guest of Mrs. Ogden Doremus, occupied one of the
boxes. The orchestra played "Home, Sweet Home," and she rose and bowed
as only Patti can bow. I talked with her between acts and told her
what a naughty, candy-loving little ten-year-old maid she had been
when she _would_ stay in Petersburg with Ellen Glasgow's mother, and
Strakosch had to pay her to sing with a hatful of candy! All this she
received with her own merry, rippling laughter. It was a kind deed—the
great singer to give an afternoon of her time to encourage me in my
enterprise, and charm my amiable amateurs by her hearty applause.
Authorized by my chief, the widow of Chief Justice Waite, I made
the Princess Eulalia and the Duchess of Veragua members of the Mary
Washington Memorial Association, and conferred upon them the Golden Star
of the order. This was a pleasant souvenir for them of the Columbian
Exposition.
The societies based upon Colonial and Revolutionary descent deprecate
the idea that anything tending to the creation of an aristocracy is
intended by their action,—that they attach any other significance to
the accident of birth than the presumption that it insures interest
and perpetuity;—that there is any motive underlying their movement less
noble than the pure principle of patriotism. Americans, notwithstanding
their adulation of foreign titles, have been until lately somewhat
sensitive lest they should be thought to assume a right to aristocracy.
When Bishop Meade was collecting material for his "History of Old
Families and Churches in Virginia," he found the owners of hereditary
arms and crests actually ashamed to confess the fact! They felt with
Napoleon a desire to create rather than inherit nobility.
The spirit of the times now seems to tend to the American aristocracy
of birth, but on the republican foundation of merit, character and
service done; not an aristocracy which assumes the right to social rule
because of birth, but an aristocracy which recognizes birth as a bond
and an obligation. "There can be," said Bishop Potter, "only one true
aristocracy in all the world—that of character enriched by learning."
It is interesting to observe the laws that govern enthusiasm. It is
like "the wind that bloweth where it listeth"—and no man can discover
its source. Once in a hundred years a great wave of patriotic ardor
has surged over this continent. Nathaniel Bacon lived a hundred years
too soon when he struck the first blow against the tyranny of England.
A hundred years later his spirit possessed our revolutionary fathers.
Another hundred years passed, and the whole country responded to a
similar instinct of patriotism. It is sure to go on and on, and be
renewed and invigorated at every centennial celebration; and who will
be able to number the ranks, or estimate the strength or compute the
riches, or rightly value the influence of the sons and daughters of the
American Revolution?
In addition to this and other patriotic societies, a very important
national society was formed of the Colonial Dames of America, in which
I was interested. No state leads in this association—all are upon an
equal footing. The applicant cannot apply, paradoxical as this appears!
Her own place in the world, however noble her lineage, must also be
considered. She must be gentle of manner as well as gentle of blood.
It is distinctly understood that this society is a firm, though silent,
protest against that aristocracy which considers itself best because
it is highest on the tax list and bank list. There is not the remotest
suggestion of an aggressive spirit, but the steady trend is against
plutocracy, arrogance, and that impertinent assumption of place notable
in this country in those who have no foundation for pride beneath the
surface of the earth, and no aspiration above it.
One of the sure prophecies of our future prosperity and honor may be
found in the number and importance of the patriotic societies of women.
For, however individuals may sully them by personal pride and ambition,
or restrict them by a spirit of exclusiveness antagonistic to the
fundamental principles upon which they are based, their very existence
proves the decided reaction from certain grave evils which are well
known and which certainly will be, unchecked, a source of peril to our
beloved country.
I believe in the true-hearted American woman. I have known her in every
phase of human experience: in poverty, in suffering, in disaster, in
prosperity. I proudly rank myself beside her! Whatever fickle fashion
or wayward fancy may decree for her, I know if there be one passionate
desire above all others which inspires her heart, it is to leave this
world better and happier for her having been born into it,—to become
herself a bright exemplar of the beauty of goodness, so that all may
be won by the loveliness of lovely lives; to let the whole trend of her
life be forward, not backward; upward, not downward; to borrow from the
fires of the heroic past to kindle the fires of the future; to preserve
to that end the memory of the deeds of those whose lives have set them
apart in the history of our country.