USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Malden > Memorial of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Malden, Massachusetts, May, 1899 > Part 26
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Malden was a scattered settlement, with less of centralization than some of its neighbors, and so it kept no common or park in its centre or about its village church. The rambling paths and roads were improved and straightened, however, and the more important ones between the various villages became the turnpikes or county roads. These county roads were great undertakings, for the small population of those days was poor, and had little connection with the greater business and wealth of town life. The occasional traveller to Boston went on horseback by Medford and Cambridge, and Brookline and Roxbury, or else down through the South Parish to Penny Ferry, thence across to Charlestown, and by another ferry to Boston. At length, in 1787, Malden Bridge was built in place of the ferry, - and some of our guests to-day may think that no bridge has ever been built to replace that old one. Thanks to the persistence of our representatives and good governor, however, we shall start the next century with a new bridge.
For generations, Malden and the other villages north of the Mystic were cut off from easy access to Boston, and their growth was slow. Fifty years ago, while Melrose and Everett were still our north and south parishes, we had altogether only forty-seven hundred inhabi- tants ; but following the Civil War a rapid increase began, and to-day these three municipalities have some seventy thousand inhabitants ; and they have begun to assert themselves.
One unfortunate result came from the long years of slow growth. Little provision was made for the greater growth of the future ; and
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a stranger would have been surprised that a people of so much hope and enterprise should have so long neglected opportunities to pro- vide themselves with ample roads and village greens or to use and beautify their streams and ponds. But a few years ago the people began to awake to their advantages and opportunities ; and for this awakening they owe great honor and praise to their fellow-townsman, Sylvester Baxter, for his constant agitation, and to good Deacon Converse for the example he gave us in Pine Banks Park. And not only Malden, but all the country about Boston shared in this awaken- ing. The English love of common lands and English sense of justice, the Puritan self-consciousness and sense of duty, the strong man's sense of achievement and right to reasonable luxury once appealed to were aronsed.
For several years now past this public spirit has been most won- derfully persistent in asserting an intelligent demand that ample provisions be made for future needs. You know the result, and I need not weary you with detailed description.
The stranger whom we take to our highest hills looks out upon a strangely different view from that which first greeted the settlers of Malden ; but he still sees far-off the Blue Hills and a line of other hills encircling Boston to our nearer Middlesex Fells, and then the Lynn Woods to the northeast. He sees the shining water of the Neponset, Charles, and Mystic Rivers, and to the east, the deep blue of the ocean. These are our landmarks now as then, and once again we have made them our common lands and waters. With the other thirty-six cities and towns of the Metropolitan Parks District, we own over nine thousand acres, and adding to these the smaller hold- ings of the separate cities and towns of the district, we have a total of about fourteen thousand acres of public lands within twelve miles of the common centre, the State House.
The timid man cries out, "Enough, and more than enough ! This must end or we shall be bankrupt." In a measure he is right, but in the main he is wrong. We have learned from the cities of the old world. In England, common lands never ceased to be common lands except by special law or by occupation and fencing by the lord of the manor. For several years, a great movement has been in progress there to rescue these again to public use ; and within London and its surrounding district of the same area as our Metro- , politan Parks District there are now nineteen thousand acres of com- mon open lands. Paris has somewhat less, but still as great an area of public parks as we have. Both London and Paris have cut wide streets or boulevards through the thickly settled city to make up for the neglect of former days.
Mere acreage, however, does not tell the whole story of our
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wealth. Every acre along the river and seashore carries also the width and openness of the river and boundless sea. No other city of the world has such matchless variety of wild land, river, and seashore so close to the busy hum of its activities ; and no other city of the world has done so much, in so short a time and at so small a cost, to preserve its natural park wealth as has Boston and the Metropolitan District. It is true that we must stop some time, and it is true that the time to cease acquiring land is close at hand ; but it is not true that we have done too much, or that we shall do too much until we have acquired all the seashore and river front which is not required for commerce, or until we have acquired the land, at least, which shall provide for connecting roads and park- ways to unite the reservations and make them accessible. When we were a series of detached villages, and life was simple, and open spaces abundant, the turnpike roads and narrow bridges were all we needed. But now the villages have grown and population is increas- ing. Electric cars and multiplied traffic crowd our roads ; and we must not only have the reservations, but we must be able to reach them in peace and comfort. The people will not begrudge the cost if they reap the enjoyment.
Do not think I believe in wholesale and random expenditure. I do not, but I believe that I understand the public sentiment and spirit when I say that the people themselves understand and believe in our Metropolitan Park System, and that they have a confidence and hope for the future which rouses their common-sense, their Puritan self- consciousness, and makes them determined to provide for the future while now they have the chance. It is this aroused public sense, this intelligent public sense which has made possible the Metropolitan parks and boulevards. And in this strong self-consciousness, this confidence in the future, this determination to carry through that which commends itself, I see the same spirit as in the Puritans who settled this town and gave us our schools and our laws and who waged our wars.
We are richer for our metropolitan parks ; we have already gained in taxable property, in reputation, in health and happiness. We shall go on reasonably and intelligently.
" In this new childhood of the earth, Life of itself shall dance and play ; Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins make mirth, And Nature meet Delight half-way."
THE TOASTMASTER. - " The outlook ; may the future have in store for us new and ever widening opportunities for development."
I shall invite a gentleman to speak upon this toast who is well 18
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known throughout the length and breadth of the commonwealth as an eloquent and convincing speaker, both in and out of the chair. I therefore introduce to you the Hon. John L. Bates.
ADDRESS BY THE HON. JOHN LEWIS BATES.
Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen :- There are but two spots on the map to-night. The one is Malden, and the other the Philippines. They are both paradises on earth, if all that we have heard recently is to be believed. They are both recent discoveries. They differ somewhat in the character of their people.
Before I proceed further, let me say that I want to congratulate the minds that conceived and the hands that executed the program for these three days' celebration. Malden was never so well adver- tised as it is now. There is no city in the commonwealth that can reach up to its shoulder-straps. I want to congratulate the city on its two hundred and fifty years of existence. I would not attempt at this late hour to in any wise enter into a repetition of any of the things which have been so well said in regard to that history. There is much in it of which any people might well be proud. You have subjugated no cities. You have conquered no peoples. I did not see any captives of war, with their clanking chains, in your procession to-day. No, I saw rather the evidence that you had not been enslav- ing your fellow-men, but that you had been fighting for the conquest of the powers of nature, and that you were exhibiting the fruits of conquest as the things in which you took pride. The yoke of oxen dragging that oak knee typified the early settlers of Malden, who took the giant oak and made it a part of the frigate "Constitution." You have a right to refer with pride to the ancestor who could see in that oak the timber of which to make that wonderful vessel. This generation, seeking to follow on those lines, digs down into the earth and brings forth the metals with which to construct the levia- thans of the deep that make even a " Constitution " but a plaything beside them. In the progress of mankind, in winning victories over nature, you take your greatest pride.
But we are not here participating in the celebration of a city that has but a past. This is no dead town. It has been no funereal pageant that we have witnessed. There has been no wearing of sack- cloth or of mourning. The tides of people would not have ebbed and flowed throughout your streets to-day to celebrate the founding, two hundred and fifty years ago, of a community that had passed out of existence and was no longer a factor in the affairs of mankind. One of your citizens has handed down for posterity the history of a little place down on Cape Ann that they called Dog Town. It is away up
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among the hills in a wilderness of boulders. No one ever thinks of going there unless he has to, and he does not have to unless the cows have strayed very far from home. There is nothing but deserted cellars in old Dog Town to-night, showing where the habitations of men once were. It is dead. We do not celebrate its founding. Nineveh is old, Babylon is old, but who thinks of celebrating their settlement to-day ? No, it is not because you have a past, but because you have a future that the commonwealth, the nation, and the world are interested in you. We have no influence on the generations that have passed. We have great influence on the generation that is, and we have yet greater influence on the generation that is coming. You recognized this when you placed upon the sidewalk to-day along the route of procession those children with their banners : " We will welcome you fifty years from now." You recognized it when you began this great celebration in this anniversary hall with exercises in which the children took the leading part.
Malden has a future. I claim no power to divine it. I know not what it may be from any reading of the stars, or from any tracing of the lines upon the palm of the hand. I read it solely in the path which it has already trod. I see it as it is, a gem among the gems so beautifully described by the one who preceded me. I see it as it is, a fair petal on the flower of this metropolitan district. I see it a beautiful daughter among sisters wonderfully fair. Its future must be in the line of its past so long as its citizenship is imbued by the same principles, so long as its honor continues as rugged as the oak, so long as its conscience continues as tender as the bud, so long as liberty continues its most precious blossom.
But Malden in the future is to travel a pathway of progress or to recede from the height to which it has attained according as the nation goes forward or lags in the march. Your school children sang the other day : " The history of our city is the history of our land." You yourselves recognized it when you decorated this building with the national emblem. You realize that you are part of a great nation, and in its future you find yours.
The nation stands at the threshold of a new era. There is none so unintelligent as not to recognize that fact. How came it there? Was it by design, or volition, or was the step forced upon it? You know what the history of the nation has been. Go back to Plymouth Rock - liberty of conscience; go back to Bunker Hill -liberty of spirit ; go back to Gettysburg - liberty of body ; you go back to Manila and Santiago and you find liberty of mankind. The pathway has been a wide, straight pathway. To-night the nation finds itself at a time when it is so productive that in two-thirds of the year suffi- cient is produced for the entire year. At this time, when it is
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looking for more markets, when its energies are being put forth in new fields, it finds itself thrown into the vortex of the Orient, where one nation strives against another that it may obtain the advantage in the breaking up of a kingdom of four hundred millions of people. Our nation's interests there are second in the family of nations. It is a fact that our trade there is greater than that of any other nation save one. It is a fact that the four hundred millions of China are within a few years to be seeking the manufactured products of Amer- ica. They are going to take the products of some nation, and the question is, which nation ? That is the opening before us as a commer- cial people. How came we there? The nation as a whole sought not to enter into international quarrels. It was unwilling to try its strength with the nations of the old world. It pursued the policy of letting alone, and being let alone. It desired no other. It was glad when it saw that it had had a beneficial influence on others. It was glad as it noted the fact that in a short century the nations of Europe, with no exception, had patterned after it in the establishment of a parliamentary body representing the people, with a power overshadow- ing the thrones themselves. It was sorry when it saw suffering and tyranny prevailing throughout the world. It contented itself with a protest against tyranny, and with seeking to help the suffering with a liberal hand. It never once thought there might be a duty to raise its strong arm in order that it might prevent the tyrannies whose hardships it sought to alleviate. From time to time, it had heard the cry of a people down to the south of us, and had told the kingdom of Spain that the trouble must cease. But the trouble went on. It found its own possessions in that island were being devastated, and that ruin was staring the island in the face. Finally, the cry became louder, and no one could turn to it a deaf ear. The nation pursued the only course that was left to it in its manhood. It raised its arm, and suddenly its swaddling clothes were burst asunder, and it rose to its height as a giant among the nations of the earth. And when the blow had fallen, the tyrannical power that for four hundred years had been keeping in subjection those islands, and the islands on the other side of the world, found itself stricken down, and in its place a new power had arisen with the responsibilities of the old.
You tell me that America is pursuing a war of conquest in the Orient. I deny the charge. America pursues no war of conquest there. America, when she struck down the Spanish rule, owed a duty to every inhabitant of the Philippine Islands, to every interest vested there. She pursued the same policy she had pursued in Cuba. She insisted that she must put a government in the place of that which she had stricken down, and that the people who had never had ex- perience in self-government should not be intrusted with those great
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interests until they had shown themselves capable of providing for them. She established herself there in order that she might bring those people to the rank of the citizenship she would have them aspire to, in order that they themselves might be able to administer the government of those islands for the benefit of mankind. America is in the Philippines, not that she may tear down, but that she may build up.
You tell me that she is sowing the dragon's teeth, and that she will reap a crop of armed men. I tell you, no. America by her example there has already reaped the opposite. By showing her strength, she has caused the tyrannies of the old world to stop, and powers and principalities to hesitate, and then to deliberate and take counsel together. Think to-night of the wise men of all nations gathering in that city across the sea, at the request of the czar of Russia, in order that they may discuss the disarmament of nations and the arbitration of international differences. Do you mean to tell me that that would have been possible on this day had it not been for the example of America last year? It was eighteen hundred years ago when the wise men came together to hear the angels sing of peace on earth and good-will to men. What of the future? What is going to come from this conference of nations? I do not know that the day of universal peace is coming on the morrow. I do not expect it. But in the future, I can see it coming. There is a trend in that direction, and man him- self cannot stop it. We realize that -
. through the ages, one increasing purpose runs ; And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns."
America is in the Orient in order that she may protect that people from the despotisms of Europe. She goes there at a time when five European nations have already obtained a foothold in China. That work has stopped. The American eagle has driven off the vultures of despotism. The American eagle is there in order that the prin- ciples of American liberty may come to those people as they rise in a new resurrection, the result of the booming of Dewey's guns at Manila one year ago. These things tend to a future when all man- kind shall be linked together. I can ask for the nations of the earth no fairer prosperity than that I have seen in Malden to-day, - a typical American city, a city of beautiful homes. I know of no community on earth better housed, better schooled, better fed, than this city of Malden. Why should not American influences produce in the far East those same liberties which they have produced here, and which have brought such magnificent results in this western world? Why should not the eastern world respond equally as well? Why should not the result of our nation's going there, of her raising her arm, in order that
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right and not might may prevail, - why should not the result of the coming together of those representatives of the nations at the Hague, - why should it not all tend to the coming of that day, foreseen by the English philosopher a century ago, the day when the war drum shall throb no longer, and all the battle flags be furled "in the par- liament of man, the federation of the world " ?
THE TOASTMASTER. - I announce as the next toast : -
" The Executive Committee."
Of course, we are anxious to hear from the executive committee of the celebration. We have present the members of that committee ; and I am pleased to call upon its chairman, whose unflagging zeal and indefatigable labor have contributed much towards making the cele- bration as a whole a memorable success. I allude, indeed, to Alfred E. Cox, Esq., who will now address us.
ADDRESS BY ALFRED E. COX.
Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen: - I am glad to be given an opportunity to speak for the executive committee and for the members of the several sub-committees, who have worked so zealously to make this celebration a success. Only those who have had a part in this work can realize how much time and effort it entailed. In composing the sub-committees, the intent was to include all sections of the city, all classes, all factions, all organizations ; and more important, to name men and women who had the inclination to render untiring service to our city.
How well the committee, which labored many evenings at the public library a year ago, arranged these committees, how sound was its judgment, you are this evening well able to judge. Apparently you and all our citizens are satisfied with the results. Surely, these men and women, who have so well performed their work upon these com- mittees, deserve your commendation. They have been unselfish and earnest and have placed the city in debt to them.
When the executive committee invited citizens to a conference for the purpose of determining what amount of money should be ex- pended, one of the speakers expressed the opinion that if the expendi- ture of twenty thousand dollars would arouse a civic pride among our citizens, it would be a wise expenditure of that sum by the city ; and he was right. If the only result of the large expenditure of money, of labor, of thought, is the placing our city on a pinnacle, temporarily, to be gazed at and admired by our neighbors, it were money, labor, and thought poorly expended. But I hope and believe that a higher and nobler result will ensue. We have seen, practically, all our
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citizens deeply interested in this celebration. It has been a revela- tion to them, and has aroused a local pride which will surely work great good to our city ; and thus will all who have rendered service in connection with this celebration be repaid for all their efforts.
THE TOASTMASTER. - I now invite your attention to the toast : " The Founders of New England - the Pilgrims and the Puritans."
It is peculiarly fitting and appropriate for us at this time to re- count the deeds of our ancestors, and to acknowledge our indebted- ness to them for the invaluable lessons of the past. We are fortunate to have as a guest this evening a gentleman well qualified to speak upon this inspiring theme. Without further ceremony, I shall call upon Colonel Curtis Guild, Jr.
ADDRESS BY COL. CURTIS GUILD, JR.
Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen : - Fifty years ago, when this same event was commemorated in this place, and the happy old custom of proposing "sentiments " had not gone out of fashion, the speaker called upon to respond to this toast was held to have said everything necessary in proposing the following sentiment : -
" The Founders of Malden. Puritans in principle, - Puritans in practice ; may their memories be cherished and their characters revered throughout all generations."
Puritans they were, but the reverence he sought for them has scarcely been accorded to them as universally as the speaker desired. So-called polite literature has used these sturdy, God-fearing men and women as the butt for its shafts for three centuries. Shakespeare sneered at them in the person of Malvolio ; old Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, could find no better adjectives for them than " rude, illiterate, capricious, base fellows." The one quotation by which even Lord Macaulay is best known is the smart sentence in which he declares that the Puritans " did not believe in bear-baiting ; not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators." And even Charles Dickens speaks of them as an uncom- fortable people, who thought it highly meritorious to dress in a hideous manner.
Though the Puritans and the memory of them thus for generations afforded material for those who pander to the thoughitless with carica- ture, lampoon, and idle jest, yet their work and their fame are safe, secured in that consciousness of right that the Latin proverb maker declared to be a brazen wall against the shafts of slander. Song and play and ballad may chant the praises of the Cavalier, but history belongs to the Puritan. The wits and verse makers at the court of
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the Stuarts found the demeanor of the awkward, crop-eared knaves, whether in train-band, or troop of horse, vastly amusing. The psalm- singing, however, did not seem so amusing when it rose in deep- throated invocation from the sober ranks just before the charge that was to sweep the beribboned cavaliers from its path, as a garden is crushed by the avalanche.
The soldiers who rode so bravely behind Prince Rupert, and Claverhouse, and Prince Charlie have left us a world of romance ; but it was the stern-faced followers of John Knox and John Hampden, the Scottish Covenanter and the English Puritan, who overthrew the tyranny of kings and left us no legacy, indeed, in the realm of fancy, but sound, hard facts in the shape of the rights of the people, the very foundation of the structure of this republic.
The gentlemen who sought a Western Golconda at Jamestown called themselves Adventurers. The plain people who first sought the shores of bleak New England, we know as Pilgrims. The Adventurers came to the new world to seek their fortune; the Pilgrims and Puritans to earn it. No weak-hearted wail went up from bleak New England at her early sufferings. Hunger, cold, and savages could not turn these brave hearts from their purpose. When the biting New England winter found them without further supply of food they gathered the acorns from the woods, the clams and mussels from the beaches, and glorified God, to use the old words, " who had given them to suck of the abundance of the seas and of treasure hid in the sands."
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