USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Gloucester > Memorial of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Gloucester, Mass. August, 1892 > Part 14
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that American ships should be built in American shipyards; and I do not sec that this result can be attained by legislation that would only have the effect of increasing the already swollen profits of the shipbuilders of Great Britain. Talk of frec trade and protection in British shipbuilding ! Why, my friends, I do not speak of subsidics, which started and maintaincd the Cunard Linc, through all its carly years, and thus made the transatlantic business an English industry ; but I refer you rather to the protection to British shipbuilders given Dy the British government during our Civil War, and I say that the Geneva award of $15,000,000 was a chcap price to pay for accomplishing the death stroke of American shipping !
To my mind, our true policy is so to foster and develop our own ship- building trade that we may be able to build American ships from our own resources. And this is what the work of the Navy Department has in large measure achieved. It has built or is building one hundred and cighty thou- sand tons of the finest stcel steamers in the world ; it has developed the skill and resources not only of our builders, but of our foundries and rolling-mills and steel manufacturers ; it has given new life to every industry employed in steel shipbuilding, and it has raised up and given steady occupation to fifty thousand skilled American mechanics. And I have it, on the authority of Mr. Charles Cramp, than whom no one knows better whereof he speaks, that American shipbuilders to-day, and his own firm among the number, can build in America the equals of the best ocean greyhounds, the " Teutonic " or the " Majestic," the " Etruria " or the "Umbria," or any of them, and secure the same result at no greater cost than was paid for these vessels in England, and that, too, with no diminution in the rate of wages of the mechanics who build them. And, on the strength of these facts, Mr. Clement Griscom, President of the International Company, and the foremost man in American shipping to-day, has engaged to have built in America, in a short time, the equals of the "City of Paris " and the " City of New York," and both he and the builders belicve - and I have no doubt they are right - that the new ships will surpass their English rivals. In the light of these developments, we may well say that commerce and the navy go hand-in-hand, and that each is the hand-maid of the other.
SECOND TOAST :
" Only as we individually realize that this grand old Bay State is. our Commonwealth, we rich or poor with her, our imperial mother, can we devoutly say, ' God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.'
" Of all her royal governors, none have been more democratic or quicker to save our Commonwealth than his Excellency William E. Russell."
GOVERNOR RUSSELL'S SPEECH.
Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen : I esteem it a great privilege which permits me to accept, on behalf of the dear old Commonwealth, the cordial greeting which Gloucester in this, her hour of rejoicing, extends to
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her, and in her name to answer it by extending the heartiest congratulations to the City of Gloucester for its long and useful and honorable life, and her best wishes that the future may have in store for it only prosperity and hap- piness. It is a great personal pleasure, as well as an official privilege, for me to take part in this celebration, for, while I can claim neither kinship nor citizenship with you, yet I can claim that for many years I have enjoyed with you these beautiful attractions which nature with lavish hand has spread here in our midst, and that with you I have gained strength and health from the vigorous breeze which old ocean brings to your storm and rock bound coast, or the gentle winds which come wafted from the fragrant forests along your shores.
I know something of the success and the strength of life of these people ; something of the skill and the industry and the perseverance with which they have followed those pursuits which have made Gloucester so prominent and famous throughout our country and the world. I know the dangers that beset the lives of those who go down to the sea in ships, and know the dis- asters, alas ! that come too often, bringing sorrow to many a home and poverty to many a fireside ; but, as I know that this community rejoices when success comes to any of its people, so, too, I know that this community, when the shadow of sorrow has passed a neighbor's door, has ever been ready to . extend a helping hand to bring aid and comfort to the widow and the orphan. With my love for old Gloucester I mingle my highest respect for the sturdy character of her people, whose loyalty and industry and energy have made her famous here in our Commonwealth, and have made her known through the world as the leading fishing port of the world.
It seems to me a most fitting thing that Gloucester should celebrate her organization into a town government. I believe that it is not only a just tribute to the ancestors who, with labor and hardships, founded this city, a just tribute that we, their descendants, pay to them, but I believe also by recalling those early days and the work and the sacrifice of those days, there are taught to us useful lessons which make us filled more with public spirit and able better to undertake the duties which beset us. I think Gloucester has wisely chosen this year for her celebration. I believe that had she been ambitious, as some of her sister towns have been, to commemorate as early a date as possible of the settlement here, she might have gone back some twenty years earlier and commemorated the two hundred and fiftieth anniver- sary of the first settlement in the town. But, after all, that was but a fleeting settlement, and it seems to me far better that she should commemorate, not the fleeting settlement, nor even the first voyage that was made from here to a foreign port, back, I believe, in 1623, but she should commemorate the more formal organization of an established community into a civil government, and organized to govern themselves. I am glad, personally, that she has chosen this year for her celebration .. Had she commemorated it some twenty years ago, I scarcely could have brought official greeting to you, or even had she commemorated it by any chance next year, if the dire prophecies that I hear ringing about my ears are sure, I doubt if I could have brought official greeting to you.
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But there are many reasons why 1892 should be a famous year in the history of this city. It marks not only the two hundred and fiftieth organiza- tion of this place as a town, but it commemorates the two hundred and fiftieth and the two hundredth and the one hundred and fiftieth and the one hundredth anniversaries of other important events which mark and distinguish the life of its people. It was two hundred and fifty years ago that in Massachusetts Colony there were built five ships, a most extraordinary undertaking in those early days, and one which gave promise of the growth and development of that great industry which has since given prominence to Massachusetts, and especially prominence to the town and city of Gloucester. It was just two hundred years ago that the people of Gloucester uttered their indignant protest against taxation thrust upon them by a Royal Governor and Council, and, under the lead of their Selectmen, were ready to subject themselves to litigation and persecution rather than yield any of their rights under such dictation. I think it was within a year or two of two hundred years ago that this happened. Certainly it was just two hundred years ago that the people of this community and of the whole Commonwealth got relieved from that oppression by the change of the royal government. This is important, because it marks the early development of that spirit of independence, of that hatred of oppression, of that resistance to unjust taxation which less than one hun- dred years later was to marshal the conscience of the people of this country to assert their independence, to establish their liberties, and upon a basis of free institutions to build up a government the greatest and the happiest known to the civilized world.
So, too, we might recall, if we wished, that this year is the two hundredth anniversary of that strange, but, I am happy to say, fleeting, superstition which ran along this coast, but luckily found little foothold among the sturdy people of Gloucester. But it seems to me, rather than recall a transitory delusion of a people, it is far better to recall and commemorate the devout spirit of piety, the deep religious conviction that then and ever since has run " through the people of, this Commonwealth. And this year recalls that great religious revival which, one hundred and fifty years ago exactly, swept throughout the Commonwealth, and in which Gloucester took a conspicuous and honorable part. And so, coming down to more modern times, you, Mr. Toastmaster, have well recalled an important anniversary in the history of this town. One hundred years ago there came an independent religious movement, the foundation of a religious denomination which has since grown strong and powerful throughout the country I believe that movement sprang from the same spirit, the same independence of thought and of action ; I be- lieve it sprang from the same devotion to freedom of conscience, to the equality of all before the altar of their God. That was the motive and the purpose which gave rise to that movement and which has constantly dis- tinguished in religious and other agitations the people of our Commonwealth. That was the same purpose and spirit which brought our ancestors hither across the sea, coming to a wilderness, willing to put up with the hardships of such a life, rather than the case and comfort at home, that they might be free to worship their God, each according to the dictates of his conscience.
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I know that in the early days, with their devotion to their religion, with their jealous fear of the dangers that beset it, they hedged it about with laws and limitations and restraints, which gradually have been relaxed in order that there might be within this Commonwealth perfect freedom in religious matters, - there might be everywhere a spirit of toleration for religious belief. I believe that Massachusetts has grown greater and stronger as, while clinging to the sturdiness, to the courage and devotion of her Puritan founders, she has become emancipated from early restraints and finds no place in her great heart for any spirit of intolerance. I recall these things, Mr. Toastmaster, not because they are all of them the most important in the history of this town ; they are by no means ; but because they are all typical of the life and the character of this community. Were I the historian of the town, of course, I should n't pass over the loyalty and patriotism which the people of Gloucester have ever shown. There never has been a war in which the interests of the colony or the Commonwealth or our country were at stake that citizens of Gloucester have not been found on the battlefields in defence of their government and their country. And all these things which are typical of the life of the town of Gloucester are just as typical of the life of our Commonwealth. It is impossible to run over the history of any of our early settlements, and trace it down without finding in the history of that settlement a perfect history of our Commonwealth. You find in her life the same industry and perseverance, the same courage and sturdiness, the same loyalty and patriotism, on which the founders built the town of Gloucester, and out of which has come your prosperity and your happiness.
I love, sir, in speaking for the old Commonwealth, to go back to the days of her beginning. I love to speak of the founders who, with a deep spirit of religious conviction, came here in prayer and faith to build up a great country and a great commonwealth. I love to speak of the far-sighted- ness of the early founders of this State. There seems to have been given them by a Divine Providence the privilege of looking down vistas of time and seeing the full fruition of their work. They seemed to know that they were nation building and church building, founding institutions which were to last as long as men should fear. God and love liberty; and so, out of their poverty and sacrifices, they gave to us our schools and our colleges ; they planted the meeting house beside the school-house and the town hall, that through religion and education and self-government the rights and the liberties of the people might be preserved and handed down to their posterity. I think that those of us who have something to do with legislation or with administration in this Commonwealth are too apt to look upon the mother State as a governing power rather than as a guiding influence. We who are respon- sible for the many, yes, altogether too many, laws which each year she sends out among her people, think of her as a power that comes into our lives, binding us about with its restraints, interfering with personal liberty, controlling property, and yet how small a part of the old Commonwealth is seen from such a view ; it is not as a hard taskmaster, but as a mother State that I love to think of old Massachusetts ; not of her strong right arm so much as her
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loyal, loving heart that watches over the interests of all her children. She has a strong right arm. She does demand obedience from her people to her laws. She always has and always will insist upon the supremacy of law within her limits and domain, that peace shall be preserved within her borders.
And yet that is not the most powerful influence which she cxerts as a Commonwealth. See how with loving interest, by wise and progressive labor and other legislation, she has brought to benefit the masses of her people, sought to relieve the toil of labor. See how she has given to us our glorious. public school system and all those great institutions upon which rest the lib- erty and the education of our people. See how, with lavish hand, she has scattered throughout her limits her hospitals, her asylums, and the blessed charities that soothc and heal and bless. See how old Massachusetts, even from the earliest times down to the present time, has stood in the front of every great agitation for human rights and for liberty, ever leading, and ever leading successfully ; and when you get that view of Massachusetts you see her as a mother State with a heart, and a mother State to whom we cling with love and loyalty. It is from her to-night I bring to you congratulations.
May I, in closing, Mr. Toastmaster, make one suggestion. Most worthily and fitly Gloucester celebrates her life of two hundred and fifty years. I doubt not that in this celebration and through it there comes a great revival of public spirit and patriotism, and a renewal with the home ties - of the ties that bind you all so closely to this old city, and make you anxious that her future may go on, great and prosperous. Why is not it an opportune time, not by a fleeting memorial to commemorate the public spirit of the ancestors and founders who have gone, but by some lasting memorial to tell the generations that are yet to come that in 1892, while you commemorated the deeds of their ancestors, you did some great work for the benefit of the generations unborn ? Why should not there be a public park or memorial building ? Why should not there come out of this revival of public spirit, why should not there, by the action of the town, aided by her patriotic citi- zens, come some lasting memorial to commemorate this great event ?
And so I close, Mr. Toastmaster, as I began. I thank you for the cor- dial greeting which you, through me, have extended to the old Common- wealth. I bring you, I know, her heartiest congratulations and her warmest wishes for your success. I join with you in pledging again our love and our loyalty to her, and following the words you have uttered, and praying that God may save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
THIRD TOAST : -
" No democratic government can long continue without the obe- dience of every individual unto the laws, and the respect of every individual to the representative law makers."
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GEN. WILLIAM COGSWELL.
Mr. Toastmaster and Citizens of Gloucester : It is said the reason why lightning never strikes but once in the same place is because when the lightning comes around the second time it cannot find any place to strike.
So after his Excellency's most admirable and fitting speech and these other speeches, all so good, there seems to be no place for any other. And as I listened to the Governor's eloquent and just tributes to this historic town, I wondered what he could say to Woburn, in October, when she celebrates her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
Mr. President, it gives me pleasure to join you to-day in this celebra- tion. To celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of any New England town is an occasion of great significance. And the occasion becomes of especial interest when it is a celebration of the founding of one of the most important and historic towns of our own native County of Essex, so well said to be "the most historic county in America." And still more so when that locality is Cape Ann, where was the actual beginning of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1624. And in this connection I ask leave to read from a high authority the following extract from a letter : -
" In 1624, there were in Massachusetts Bay small settlements at Wey- mouth, Braintree, and one or more families at Boston and Charlestown. But the actual beginning of the colony was at Cape Ann in the spring of 1624, by the agents of a company of merchants of Dorchester, England, who started the experiment of a plantation in connection with fishing and farming and who selected this as a suitable place. After the first year the company appointed Roger Conant as 'their governor,' to take charge of fishing and farming. A settlement was made by more than fifty men, some with their families.
"In the autumn of 1626, the fishery having proved a failure, it was given up and the vessels sold, and such of the planters as desired to, returned to England. But Conant, with the rest, remained to take charge of the cattle and other property on the plantation. He conceived the idea of maintaining a plantation independent of fishing, and as Cape Ann proved to be unsuitable for a plantation, in the early autumn of 1626, he, with his com- pany, moved to Salem (Naumkeag) as a suitable place for a plantation. Rev. Mr. White, of Dorchester, the father of the whole movement, kept up a cor- respondence with Conant, urged him to remain, and promised to get for him a patent, and would send what he needed in men and provisions and where- withal to trade with the Indians. He interested others in the work, who con- tributed and sent over additional cattle for their support and encouragement. "In the meantime an interest was excited in the project, a patent obtained, and additional men sent over under Endicott as Governor.
" This was hardly good faith with Conant, and his company were indig- nant at his being superseded, after all his efforts; but they were reconciled through the prudent efforts of Conant.
" From this came the great emigration under Winthrop in 1630, which insured the permanency of the colony.
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" It is plain that Cape Ann is entitled to the honor of inaugurating this great movement, and that neither it nor Conant has been justly treated in the histories of the undertaking."
The chief industry of Gloucester to-day is the same as it was two hun dred and fifty years ago, which can be said of no other place I know of in this country. And in that industry she has always maintained the lead. And as this calling ("an apostolic one," as your distinguished townsman, Judge Thompson, would say) necessitated the building of ships and the navigation of the sea, its development early gave the mother country apprehension and alarm, and it became a great source of the power which finally enabled us to break the bonds of colonial dependence and establish our own Independence.
And it is safe to say that in the Revolution and in the War of 1812, we could neither have manned a vessel nor captured one, but for the fishermen of New England.
And while steam and iron have, in a great measure, taken the place of sailing vessels on high seas, yet in any foreign war in which we might be engaged, the chief support and nucleus of a successful and commerce-destroy- ing American navy will always be found in the fishermen and fishing fleets of our country.
"Thrice is he armed who has his quarrel just." At least twice is he armed who can fight on land and sea, which the fisherman of Gloucester has shown he can do, for, " many a time and oft," during these two hundred and fifty years, has he shed his blood for his country on both "field and deck."
But, Mr. President, this celebration means more than commercial pros- perity and supremacy. It means, with the disadvantages of a hard climate, a sterile soil, and the hostile Indian, the overcoming of these obstacles, the breaking away from colonial dependence on Great Britain, and the successful establishment in a new country, then unconquered and unexplored, of an empire which to-day extends from ocean to ocean, and embraces within its indissoluble and indestructible Union, forty-four great commonwealths, with already a population of sixty-five millions.
It means the germ, the growth, the bud, the blossom, and the full fruit- age of civil and religious freedom and government by the people. A few weeks hence this country, in conjunction with the different nations of the earth, will open the celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of the dis- covery of America by Columbus. It will be a most wonderful affair, worthy of the able and public-spirited management in charge, worthy of the great American city of the continent, where it will be held, worthy of the great country whose discovery it will celebrate. There is hardly a people under the sun but will contribute to its success. It will illustrate the history and progress of America in that time. Yet, substantially, all the history and progress therein shown will have been accomplished within the time that Gloucester has been a town, and would not have been accomplished but for the courage and virtue and spirit of the men and women and the like of them who settled this town two hundred and fifty years ago.
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What was that courage ? It was the courage to do right as God gave them to see the right.
What was that virtue? It was the supremest virtue, a stern and unconquerable sense of duty to be performed.
What was that spirit ? It was the unquenchable fire of liberty burning in their breasts, liberty of conscience, liberty of speech, liberty of local self- government.
And from the beginning up to now, whenever we have held foremost and before us such courage, such virtue, such spirit, we have risen higher and come nearer the ideal government " of the people, by the people."
And whenever and wherever we have gone astray from those principles, we have shaken the faith of honest and intelligent men in the ultimate success of such government.
I still believe the new times are better than the old. There is more comfort, less hardship and suffering, more general knowledge, more oppor- tunities, more happiness, and I believe the world is better to-day than it ever was before.
But I do think that the high purposes which inspired our fathers, and the grand principles to which they held are and will ever be the best of all time, and when we shall have parted the last mooring which holds us to those purposes and principles, we shall drift upon the rocks.
FOURTH TOAST : -
"Old Essex ! By thy bold shores that dam the mighty sea, thy fertile pastures and shadowy woods, the All Father hath, by nature's teaching, grown a gallant, wise, and fair humanity. When did she ever lack for praise from eloquent and scholarly thought?"
HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE.
Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen : I fully share with my friend and colleague who has just spoken to you, in his appreciation of the complete- ness and the eloquence and the fitness of what has been said by the Secretary and by the Governor, in response to the toasts of the United States and of Massachusetts. But great as these subjects are, and admirably as they have been responded to, there is always room for a word for old Essex. There are some people so unfortunate as not to be connected with Essex County either by birth or residence or descent. We are sorry for them. Sometimes I have heard those persons, so unfortunately situated, express some wonder at the pride and affection, which they have criticised as extreme, felt by the children of Essex for the old county. I think it is because they never studied the his- tory of that county to find the answer. It is very hard to explain just what that affection is, that attachment of humanity for a particular portion of the earth. It comes and touches and sounds what Lincoln called the "mystic cords " that stretch to every fireside, and yet it is one of the strongest and deepest feelings of which human nature is susceptible.
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