USA > Indiana > Wayne County > Richmond > Memoirs of Wayne County and the city of Richmond, Indiana; from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Wayne County, Volume I Pt. 2 > Part 9
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Most of Mr. Foulke's verse is contained in his lyrical drama, "Maya" (Cosmopolitan Press, 1911).
The following scene represents the death of that princess on the terrace in front of one of the palaces of Uxmal, in Yucatan, and her conversion in her last hour to the faith of her husband :
(Enter Maya through the central doorway, borne by her maidens on an uncovered litter or cot, ou which she ties unconscious and which they place on the terrace in front of the doorway. Sandoval mounts the terrace and the low sobs of the maidens are heard. As Sandoval reaches the litter aud bends over it they withdraw.)
Sandoval:
My queen, my life! O steal not thus away Without one smile for him who loves thee best! Look! 'tis thy husband's lips on thine are pressed As tenderly as on thy wedding day.
Never before, thy answering caress Failed when I called thee. Dear, dost thou not know 'Tis I who hold thee close to shield thee-so- And kiss thy brow and stroke each shining tress?
Maya: Ah! Canek! Fiend! Let him not clutch our child! Sandoval: But Canek is no more. Hush! All is well.
Maya:
I saw him leering mid the flames of hell!
Sandoval: Nay, still thy fluttering heart! 'Twas I who smiled. ( Maya falls back upon the litter unconscious.)
Sandoval (kneeling) :
O gracious Lord, I will not ask her life, But for her last low words of love I yearn And that her quiet spirit may return From paths of madness and from dreams of strife.
(Evening comes on. Maya slowly awakens, looks around distraught. recognizes Sandoval and smiles.)
Maya (caressing him) :
Love, is it thou ? A vision strange I dreamed. It was the heart of the immortal night, We stood upon the brow Of the Diviner's House and silently Into the mystery of the solemn sky
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Long did we gaze till bright The Southern Cross arose, and lo! It seemed Between its four great stars, the while we stood,- A countless multitude Of lesser lights came forth from out the blue And slowly grew
Into a mass of burning, dazzling gold!
Then on the Cross was limned a form and face Sad, suffering, fair, its pallid features crowned With tender grace. And now from all around
Came starry groups in figures manifold Of children with bright wings
That floating by the cross in cherub throngs, Touched the soft strings
Of tiny instruments, and sang caressing songs
Till the deep heavens rejoiced at the sweet strain
And the sad face smiled through his tears and pain! Our child was there
And held his tiny hands to the pale god As he had held them once to Ixchel's form.
Then the bright cross dissolved and garments white Fell on the figure. Upward through the sky He floated and the children followed him. Now far beneath, the constellations grouped Themselves again, and in wild flames they leaped Up to the shining form, but touched it not. Amid the fires I saw a hideous face I knew too well. It bore the cruel lips And leering eyes of Peten-Itza's lord. His gaze was fastened on one child alone- On ours-and the old chief struggled hard To clutch and drag him down into the flames. But the bright being in the shining robes Stretched forth his arms. "Nay, he is mine," he cried, And took the child and held him to his breast,
And there the boy lay quietly and slept As in his mother's bosom.
With love unspeakable my heart was filled For the dear God that plucked our boy from harm And sheltered him in his protecting arm And my dumb terrors stilled. Zamna nor Kukulcan nor the "Sun's Eye" Is such as He.
Let me but keep my garden when I die- My birds that sing in the immortal tree- And I will follow thee, With thee adore that pitying face divine- Thy God and thy Redeemer shall be mine!
(She falls into unconsciousness again. then awakens with a start.)
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Even now he calls me. See his beckoning hand! Now must I go to Him!
Sandoval (with choking voice) :
Nay, my sweet queen,
With me shalt thou abide? To the king's court Shall we return and many a golden year Together dwell.
Maya :
Nay, husband mine, not there!
For I must sleep a little with my child.
But fear not, I will come, as I have said, And flutter round thee as in other days. We still shall dwell together, not at Manl, But in the garden by the tree of life! (Her eyes close in death.)
Robert Underwood Johnson, formerly of Wayne county and a graduate of Earlham, has written many admirable poems. They were all productions of later years, after he left Indiana, yet two illustrations may well be included in this account. The first is entitled, "Love in Italy," and appears as part of a larger poem, "The Winter Hour," in his collection, published by the Century Company in 1910:
They halted at the terrace wall; Below the towered city lay; The valley in the moonlight's thrall Was silent in a swoon of May. As hand to hand spoke one soft word Beneath the friendly ilex tree, They knew not, of the flame that stirred, What part was love, what Italy.
They knew what makes the moon more bright Where Beatrice and Juliet are- The sweeter perfume in the night, The lovelier starlight in the star; And more that glowing hour did prove, Beneath the sheltering ilex tree- That Italy transfigures Love, As Love transfigures Italy.
His affection for that beautiful country is also shown in his "Italian Rhapsody," from which the following stanzas are taken :
To me thou art an ever-brooding spell; An old enchantment, exorcised of wrong; A beacon, whereagainst the wings of Song Are bruised so, they cannot fly to tell;
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A mistress, at whose feet A myriad singers meet,
To find thy beauty the despair of measures full and sweet. * *
Absence from thee is such as men endure Between the glad betrothal and the bride;
Or like the years that Youth, intense and sure, From his ambition to his goal must bide. And if no more I may Mount to Fiesole.
Oh, then were Memory meant for those to whom is Hope denied.
Who can withstand theo? What distress or care But yields to Naples, or that long day-dream
We know as Venice, where alone more fair Noon is than night: where every lapping stream Wooes with a soft caress Our new-world weariness
And every ripple smiles with joy at sight of scene so rare.
Thou human-hearted land, whose revels hold Man in communion with the antique days And summon him from prosy greed to ways Where Youth is beckoning to the Age of Gold; How thou dost hold him near And whisper in his ear Of the lost Paradise that lies beyond the alluring haze.
Although Strickland W. Gillilan was born in Ohio and is now residing in Maryland, yet his literary reputation began while he was connected with the "Richmond Palladium" in that city. It was here that he wrote his "Finnigin to Flannigan," which opens his volume of verses, "Including Finnigin," published in 1912, in Chicago. This poem at once acquired a wide popularity. It is as follows :
Superintindint wuz Flannigan; Boss av th' siction wuz Finnigin. Whiniver th' cyars got off th' thrack An' muddled up things t' th' divvle an' back Finnigin writ it t' Flannigan, Afther th' wrick wuz all on agin; That is, this Finnigin Repoorted t' Flannigan.
Whin Finnigin furrst writ t' Flannigan. He writed tin pa-ages, did Finnigin; An' he towld just how th' wrick occurred-
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Yis, minny a tajus, blunderin' wurrd Did Finnigin write t' Flannigan Afther th' cyars had gone on agin- That's th' way Finnigin Repoorted t' Flannigan.
Now Flannigan knowed more than Finnigin- He'd more idjucation, had Flannigan. An' ut wore 'm clane an' complately out T' tell what Finnigin writ about In 's writin t' Musther Flannigan. So he writed this back: "Musther Finnigin :- Don't do sich a sin agin; Make 'em brief, Finnigin!"
When Finnigin got that from Flannigan He blushed rosy-rid, did Finnigin. An' he said: "I'll gamble a whole month's pay That ut 'll be minny an' minny a day Befure sup'rintindint-that's Flannigan- Gits a whack at that very same sin agin.
Frum Finnigin to Flannigan Repoorts won't be long agin."
Wan day on th' siction av Finnigin, On th' road sup'rintinded be Flannigan, A ra-ail give way on a bit av a currve An' some cyars wint off as they made th' shwarve. "They's nobidy hurrted," says Finnigin, "But repoorts must be made t' Flannigan." An' he winked at McGorrigan As married a Finnigin.
He wuz shantyin' thin, wuz Finnigin, As minny a railroader's been agin, An' 'is shmoky ol' lamp wuz burnin' bright In Finnigin's shanty all that night- Bilin' down his repoort, wuz Finnigin. An' he writed this here: "Musther Flannigan :- Off agin, on agin, Gone agin .- Finnigin."
But these verses have by no means the literary quality which has distinguished some of Mr. Gillilan's later poetry, of which an illustration is given, in "The Girl Child":
'Course we'd figgered on a boy-child, same as people always does- Baby-girls is jest th' uselessest they is er ever was. Helpless when they're kids an' helpless when they're middle-aged er old- All th' fambly turns pertector fer th' ewe-lamb of the fold.
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Dassent ever pop th' questlon, even though she's lost in love; Has t' set an wait till some man labels 'er 'is turtle-dove. Yit it wa'n't a boy, by gracious! when it come, th' other day, But we've kind o' got a notion that we'll keep it, anyway.
'Course 'twas dredful disapp'intin' that it couldn't bin a boy, An' th' tears we shed er swallered wa'n't no sparklin' tears o' joy; But she's jest so small an' cunnin', an' she snuggles up so sweet, With 'er fists like velvet rosebuds an' 'er little wrinkled feet- Clingin' close, jest like th' tendrils of th' mornin'-glory vine As it clambers up th' porch-post on a piece o' cotton twine- Never knowin' she hain't welcome as th' flowers Is in May; So we've somehow got a notion that we'll keep 'er, anyway.
Then, ag'in, I thought o'mother-she was onct a baby-girl. Ain't no tellin' jest which eyester is th' one that hides the pearl. Who'd 'a' knowed when she was little that she'd ever be so great, An' would make my dear old daddy sich a stiddy runnin'-mate ? Then th' one that lays an' snuggles with this bran'-new baby hyer -- Would my life be worth th' livin' if it hadn't bin fer her? She was jest as pink an' helpless as this new one is, one day; So it's purty easy guessin' that we'll keep her, any way.
"Mammy's Lullaby," written in negro dialect, is another :
Sleep, mah li'l pigeon, don' yo' heah yo' mammy coo? Sunset still a-shinin' in de wes'; Sky am full o' windehs an' de stahs am peepin' froo- Eb'ryt'ing but mammy's lamb at res'. Swing 'im to'ds de Eas'lan', Swing 'im to'ds de Souf- See dat dove a-comin' wif a olive in 'is mouf! Angel's hahps a-hummin', Angel banjos strummin'- Sleep, mah li'l pigeon, don' yo' heah yo' mammy coo?
-
-
Cricket fiddleh scrapin' off de rozzum f'um 'is bow, Whippo'will a-mo'nin' on a lawg;
Moon ez pale es hit kin be a-risin' mighty slow- Stahtled at the bahkin' ob de dawg; Swing de baby Eas'way, Swing de baby Wes', Swing 'im to'ds de Souflan', whah de melon grow de bes'! Angel singehs singin', Angel bells a-ringin', Sleep, mah li'l pigeon, don' yo' heah yo' mammy coo?
Eyelids des a-droopin' li'l loweh all de w'ile, Undeh lip a-saggin' des a mite;
Li'l baby toofies showin' so't o' lak a smile,
...
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Whiteh dan de snow, or des ez white. Swing 'im to'ds de No'flan', Swing 'im to'ds de Eas'- Wooly cloud a-comin' fo' t' wrap 'im in 'is fleece! Angel ban' a-playin'- What dat music sayin'? Sleep, mah li'l pigeon, don' yo' heah yo' mammy coo?
From the foregoing illustrations it seems quite clear that Wayne county's contribution to the poetry of Indiana has been quite extensive.
ORATORY.
It is not often that a political speech can be classed as litera- ture, yet Wayne county has had two sons who were entitled to take place in the very front rank of American orators-George W. Julian and Oliver P. Morton. Although they were both Re- publicans they were quite unlike in their political views. Julian was an early Abolitionist, the candidate of the Free Soil party for Vice-President, for a long time the representative of the "Old Burnt District" in Congress, a bitter, uncompromising foe of slavery upon principle. Morton's anti-slavery principles were of slower growth. They began with the repeal of the Missouri Com- promise, but he was tremendously effective in his ultimate at- tacks upon that injurious system. Julian was the pioneer, the agi- tator, the reformer ; Morton was the constructive statesman, whose ideas were finally embodied in the reconstruction measures of Congress and in the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. Julian's speeches were published in two books, the first in 1872, entitled "Speeches on Political Questions," and the second, "Later Speeches," which did not appear till 1889. Morton's speeches as a whole have never been collected, but liberal extracts have been made from them in his Biography, published by Mr. Foulke. Julian's attitude is well shown by his speech on "The Slavery Question in Its Present Relation to American Politics," June 29, 1855, in which he attacks the position of Morton and others who merely opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and wanted it restored :
"I oppose slavery upon principle. I hold it to be wrong in principle for one man to be the owner of another, to deny him a fair day's wages for a fair day's work, to rob him of the holiest ties of life and sell him on the auction-block as a chattel, to take from him his Bible and close against him the avenues of knowl-
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edge, to annihilate the institution of marriage and spread licentious- ness and crime over the land. This I regard as unutterably wicked, independent of any compact or compromise, by which slavery and freedom may have assumed to dispose of their pos- sessions according to certain geographical lines. Hence I hate slavery wherever I can find it, from the north pole down to thirty- six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude; and when I get there, I go right on hating it all round the globe, wherever I can trace its slimy foot-steps. I confess I have not yet mastered the slippery philosophy by which some men loathe and execrate it on the north side of a particular line and then transfigure it into all blessedness and beauty by the magic of a mere parallel of latitude."
Mr. Julian was equally uncompromising after the war in re- gard to reconstruction, and he opposed the positon of Morton, who at that time (though he afterwards modified it) favored a period of probation before allowing negroes to vote. Julian says: "It is said that the negroes are unfit to vote-that they are too ignorant; and I have heard it said that they need a probation of ten or twenty years to prepare them for the ballot ; that they must have time to acquire property, knowledge of political rights and duties, and then it will do to give them the ballot. I don't under- stand that argument. When you commit the negro to the tender mercies of his old tyrant, who proceeds to deny him all the ad- vantages of education, the accumulation of property, and all so- cial and political privileges, how soon will he become prepared for the ballot? You might as well talk about preparing a man to see by punching out his eyes; or preparing him for war by cutting off his feet and hands; or preparing the lamb for security by com- mitting it to the jaws of the wolf. If you want to prepare the negro for suffrage, take off his chains and give him equal ad- vantages with white men in fighting the battle of life. Don't charge him with unfitness until you have given him equal op- portunities with others. Gentlemen, who made them unfit? I think it was the Rebels. They enslaved them, degraded them, brutalized them, made them what they are; and after their wick- edness has brought on this war, and they are mastered, and the question of restoring government to the South comes up, then the Rebels complain of the unfitness of the negroes to vote! They made them unfit, and 'no man,' says the legal maxim, 'shall take advantage of his own wrong.' Are you going to be very nice or fastidious in selecting a man to vote down a Rebel? Must you
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have a perfect gentleman and scholar for this work? I think the negro just the man. I would not have a better if I could. Of all men he is the most fit. The Rebel, I know, won't like it. It will hurt him to make his bed on negro ballots. He will get mad enough to explode. Shall I pour out my tears over his sorrows? I will save them for a more fit occasion. He sowed the wind. let him reap the whirlwind. He is the architect of his own fortune. let him enjoy it.
"Thunder it in the ears of your President and Congress that vou demand the hanging, certainly the exile, of the great Rebel leaders; the confiscation and distribution of their great landed es- tates ; and that the governing power of the South shall be placed in the hands of the friends and not the enemies of the Nation. Do this, and the result will be a peace with the South as lasting as her hills, and our Republic will be in reality, for the first time in her history, the model Republic of the world."
Morton had taken part in the campaigns for Fremont and Lincoln and had been elected lieutenant-governor of Indiana in 1860. He was still a resident of Wayne county when the first steps were taken looking toward the secession of South Carolina, and his was the first voice in the country which outlined the neces- sary policy of the Lincoln administration toward the South. This he did in a wonderful speech, delivered in the Court House at Indianapolis on Nov. 22, 1860, following an address by Governor Lane, whose remarks had been filled with sentiments of concilia- tion toward the South. Morton's address was in a different vein. He said :
"What is coercion but the enforcement of the law? Is any- thing else intended or required? Secession or nullification can only be regarded by the General Government as individual action upon individual responsibility. Those concerned in it can not in- trench themselves behind the forms of the State government so as to give their conduct the semblance of legality, and thus de- volve the responsibility upon the State government, which of itself is irresponsible.
"The constitution and laws of the United States operate upon individuals, but not upon States, and precisely as if there were no States.
"In this matter the President has no discretion. He has taken a solemn oath to enforce the laws and preserve order, and to this end he has been made commander-in-chief of the army and navy. How can he be absolved from the responsibility thus de-
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volved upon him by the constitution and his official oath? Can it be done by the resolution of conventions, by the advice of the newspapers, or even by a decided preponderance of public opinion ?
"There is but one way in which the President can be absolved from his duty to exert all the power reposed in his hands by the Constitution to enforce the laws in South Carolina, and that is, by our acknowledgment of her independence. The Constitution provides that Congress may admit new States into the Union, but there is no provision for turning one out, or permitting one to go out. A State once admitted into the Union becomes a part of the body of the nation, and severance or secession is not con- templated by the Constitution as permissible or possible. . .
"If Congress possesses the power to acknowledge the inde- pendence of a State, and thus to place it without the pale of the Union, that power must result from an inexorable necessity by a successful revolution. While a State is in the Union, there is no power under the Constitution permitting the general and State governments to enter into negotiations with each other. No gov- ernment possesses the constitutional power to dismember itself.
"If the right does exist in this Government to acknowledge the independence of South Carolina, or of any other State, that right can only be exercised by an act of Congress. The President, of himself, does not possess it, and consequently, until released from his duty by such acknowledgment, he must exert his power to enforce the laws.
"If an attempt at secession be made, there is but one of two courses to be pursued, either to allow the seceding State peace- ably to go and set up for herself an independent government, or else, by the police or military power of the United States, to com- pel an observance of the laws and submission to constitutional obligations.
"We can not allow South Carolina to secede without con- ceding the right, and thereby settling the principle as to the re- maining States. The right of secession conceded, the nation is dissolved. Instead of having a nation-one mighty people-we have but a collection and combination of thirty-three independent and petty States, held together by a treaty which has hitherto been called a Constitution, of the infraction of which Constitution each State is to be the judge, and from which combination any State may withdraw at pleasure.
"The right to secede being conceded, and the way to do it
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having been shown to be safe and easy, the prestige of the re- public gone, the national pride extinguished with the national idea, secession would become the remedy for every State or sec- tional grievance, real or imaginary. And in a few short years we should witness the total dissolution of that mighty republic which has been the hope and the glory of the world. We should then have before us the prospect presented by the history of the petty states of Greece and Italy and the principalities of Ger- many. Need I stop to argue the political, intellectual, social and commercial death involved in this wreck and ruin?
"We must then cling to the idea that we are a nation, one and indivisible, and that, although subdivided by State lines, for local and domestic purposes, we are one people, the citizens of a com- mon country, having like institutions and manners, and possessing a common interest in that inheritance of glory so richly provided by our fathers. We must, therefore, do no act, we must tolerate no act, we must concede no idea or theory that looks to or in- volves the dismemberment of the nation.
"And especially must we of the inland States cling to the national idea. If South Carolina may secede peaceably, so may New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and Louisiana, cutting off our commerce and destroying our right of way to the ocean. We should thus be shut up in the interior of a continent, surrounded by independent, perhaps hostile nations, through whose territories we could gain egress to the seaboard only upon such terms as might be agreed to by treaty. Emigrants from foreign lands could only come to us by permission of our neighbors, and we could not reach any Atlantic port except by passports duly viséd. In such a condition of affairs the seaboard States would possess immense advantages.
"If South Carolina gets out of the Union, I trust it will be at the point of the bayonet, after our best efforts have failed to compel her submission to the laws. Better concede her inde- pendence to force, to revolution, than to right and principle. Such a concession can not be drawn into precedent and construed into an admission that we are but a combination of petty States, any one of which has a right to secede and set up for herself, whenever it suits her temper, or her views of her peculiar in- terest. Such a contest, let it terminate as it may, would be a declaration to the other States of the only terms upon which they would be permitted to withdraw from the Union.
"Shall we now surrender the nation without a struggle and
:
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let the Union go with merely a few hard words? Shall we en- courage faint-hearted traitors to pursue their treason, by advis- ing them in advance that it will be safe and successful? If it was worth a bloody struggle to establish this nation, it is worth one to preserve it; and I trust that we shall not, by surrendering with indecent haste, publish to the world that the inheritance which our fathers purchased with their blood, we have given up to save ours.
"Seven years is but a day in the life of a nation, and I would rather come out of a struggle at the end of that time, defeated in arms and conceding independence to successful revolution, than purchase present peace by the concession of a principle that must inevitably explode this nation into small and dishonored frag- ments.
"But of the result of such a struggle I entertain the utmost hope and confidence. He who compares our glorious war for in- dependence with a war set on foot to propagate human slavery, to crush out liberty of speech and of the press, and to inaugurate and revive, with all its untold and indescribable horrors, the African slave-trade, must have an indifferent idea of the justice of that Providence who holds in his hands the issue of battle. To employ the language of a great statesman, 'Surely the Almighty has no attribute that could take sides with rebels in such a contest.'
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