USA > North Carolina > Guilford County > Greensboro > The history of the first North Carolina reunion at Greensboro, N. C., October eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth, nineteen hundred and three > Part 10
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Address by Honorable A. C. Fitzgerald Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada
An Off hand Sage-Brush Offering at the Guilford Battle Ground
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen:
Deep was my sympathy for the distinguished President of your Board of Managers ( Dr. MeIver), when it appeared, at the Opera House on yesterday. that the sun had too early hastened over the Western hills, and night was fast fall- ing before the gentlemen designated then to address you had all spoken; and
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he announced that those who had been so designated and who had not already spoken would be placed as a kind of prefatory annex to the entertainment to be given at the "Battle Ground"' today.
The Doctor's situation reminded me of a story (although, as you are aware, a North Carolinian, whether resident or non-resident, rarely indulges himself in the luxury of teiling a story). An aged brother, seventy-two years old, was superintendent of a Sunday school. An aged minister, likewise sev- enty-two, visited the school; and was by the superintendent ealled on to pray. He prayed, and prayed, and prayed! When at last he brought his orisons to an end, the superintendent said:
"Well, children, so much time has run to waste, we will not have any les- sons today".
I must entreat, ladies and gentlemen, that you do not press the analogies of this story too far. For instance; it is not at all intended to be insinuated that Dr. MeIver, although he is indeed venerable in knowledge and wisdom, is likewise so in years and hours. In thoughts and good deeds he has lived long; in days and years not so much so.
This day should indeed be memorable. With me surely it will be ever in pleasure remembered when many other pleasant things of the bright beauty of this fair world shall have faded from my view.
The first thought of the head and the first feeling of the heart with me today is gladness-gladness that I am today among you, you the sons and daughters of 'the glorious Old North State", as well the non-resident as the resident. Once I had the honor to be classed among the latter, the residents; now I am to be classed among the former, the non-residents. Always have I been proud, and today am I proud, to say that I was born in the good old county of Rockingham, in the glorious old state of North Carolina-shall I add, as did an Irishman of his loved city of Dublin-"at a very early period of my life"!
A year or so ago, at a gathering in Nevada, I was asked by a gentleman in what State I was born. I replied, "in that State in which the first Declaration of Independence of the British crowu was made, and also the first battle of the American Revolution was fought".
Are you surprised that I had, after further inquiry, to announce the name North Carolina? Such is history ..
From what I saw on my hitherward journey in the State, and since arrival in your good city of Greensboro, and heard from the eloquent lips of Governor Aycock and Colonel Morehead when on yesterday, the first in the name of the State, and the second in the name of the city, gave to us who have wandered that memorable welcome, that genuine heart-welcome, characteristic even of the North Carolinian of the olden time, to that hospitality also so characteristie of the North Carolinian of the olden time-vea; also from what other eloquent lips have said to us yesterday and today-we see that North Carolina has, siure the departure of us who have wandered, made progress. Progress indeed in physical things-the useful, the necessary, the convenient, and eveu the luxuri- ous. But glad indeed are we. the wanderers, to see that she has not lagged in the better things-things intellectual, moral, and spiritual; schools, colleges, printing presses, hospitals, and churches. These. as well as the others, appear to be mauy in number and good in kind.
Of one thing among the improvements I can not refrain from making special mention, to wit: this gloriously famous Guilford Courthouse Battle Ground; happily now redeemed from its sometime obscurity and ungleet, and set
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forth in light and beauty to be hereafter ever a tribute to the merited valor and worth of Carolinian and Virginian soldiers, and likewise an incentive to the present generation and each future generation ever to imitate their noble exam- ple. For this, I am informed, the greatest honor is due to Judge David Schenck. It is not the lands and houses and mansions and goods and jewels and moneys of our ancestors that constitute the noblest inheritance that we have received from them; it is their good and great thoughts, and their good and great and noble deeds, that make up their best legacy to us. In these they have left us rich indeed. Let us not by our sloth and inattention to them make ourselves poor. I see that you, the residents, have not made yourselves poor; and we, the wanderers, shall endeavor to imitate your example.
Somewhere, I have seen it stated that a very large audience assembled to hear Mr. Webster when he made what in history is known as the Bunker-Hill- Monument oration. The crowd pressed around the speaking stand to such an extent that the exercises could not proceed. The efforts of the chairman and those of the committee to get it to move back were unavailing. It was sug- gested that Mr. Webster request the crowd to move back, it being supposed that his great influence with them would make them heed. He did so. Some one in the crowd called out, " Mr. Webster, it is impossible". Mr. Webster replied, "On Bunker Hill, on the Fourth of July, nothing is impossible". It is said that instantly the crowd moved back, with a simultaneous impulse, as if touched with a magic wand!
So, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me today: On this ideally-perfect day, at the Guilford Courthouse Battle Ground (itself as ideally perfect as a Greek grove, peopled with its mythological beings, nymphs and dryads, etc.), as looking into the multitude of earnest and upturned faces of this great audi- ence of brave men and fair women, descendants of the brave and the fair of the dark days of the Revolutionary Period; a few, indeed, those of the gray head and infirm step, being companions of my own youth and struggling early man- hood; I feel that nothing is impossible-nothing! Not even that I, the obscur- est and humblest of those who have wandered; I, whom the untiring energy of your Committee of Management found even away out in the land of the sage- brush, the smallest and most somber of the sisterhood of American States: I, whom they found and honored with an invitation to be present here today; aye. nothing is impossible; not even that I could make a speech! But, ladies and gentlemen, can I do it in the space of time allotted-seven minutes!
When I first was informed, on the afternoon of the day before yesterday. that a speech was expected of me here today; and, after a refusal, told that I. must make one; my first thought was what shall I. can I, say? That thought has been occurring to me at every moment of leisure since; such moments, too, have been, thanks to the many kindly greetings and cordial welcomes of old and new friends, few. That thought is occurring to me now. What shall I say ? You are waiting to hear and I am struggling to say it; and, ladies and gentle- men, I verily believe that you will solve the problem as soon as I. But I, too. like the residents, must make progress in saying it; and O, that the genius of oratory would come for once in a long and troubled life and touch my leaden lips!
What is the significance of this occasion? You, ladies and gentlemen resi- dent, have by this occasion shown to us who have wandered what you think of us, in the very kind and courteous and generous invitation that you sent us to be your guests today-sacred word guest, meaning thereby the friend who onee was absent but now is present; yet still, present or absent, ever and always a
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friend. We, the wanderers, feel pleased and honored today to be your guests --- guests in a threefold sense; first of the State, as your honored Governor has told us; second of the city, as its distinguished Mayor has informed us; and third of the fireside and the home, as the eyes that have at all times so kindly looked into ours continually say to us.
But what is it that you have thus shown us? It is that you have remem- bered and loved us. Is it that you could have shown more? We answer: No; and for this great showing we say truly, gratefully, sincerely, we thank you.
Now, can we who have wandered show as much to you? We say we feel as much; but mistrust our skill and ability to show it. You speak your showing by deed; we can speak ours only by the less-striking word, unless our accepting your invitation and coming to you be deeds of some little significance that we love you. Be pleased to accept them in that light.
But words are not useless; they are the signs of things. Please indulge me in a few words that are significant of things: In June of 1866, I, with sad heart, turned my footsteps away from the then war-desolated state of North Carolina, to that new and flourishing state at the Westerninost boundary of the great Republic, California. Some months after arrival at the city by the Golden Gate, San Francisco, an incident occurred that I beg you to permit me to relate: It may have some significance to you in the way of expression of the wanderer's thought of you. There was a brilliant evening party. I had the honor to be there an invited guest. A very beautiful and highly-accomplished young lady -beautiful and accomplishel, indeed, she was; but allow me to add not more so than were "the girls I left behind me"-asked me which I liked the better, North Carolina or California. I "made answer and said":
If Azrael, the angel of death, should, while I was in California, take my soul, I should endeavor to pursuade him not to take it in a straight line in the per- pendicular up from the city by the Golden Gate to the abode of the blest; but to go with it on an incline to the eastward, until he should reach a spot imme- diately in the perpendicular over a little red hill in Rockingham County, N. C .; and there place in my hand the title deed to my "' mansion in the skies".
That was my sentiment then. What is it now? Well, after a residence of nearly four decades on the Pacific Coast-eleven years in California, the land of gold, and twenty-five in Nevada, the land of silver and gold-should Azrael come while I am in the "land of the sage-brush", I should bespeak him thus: "Lo, Azrael; you, I am told, have, as the boys out West say, ' a pull' up there. Though, I am compelled to say, it can not be for your good looks; for I frankly say to you that I have yet to see the man who did not look upon your countenance with horror. It must be then for your acknowledged skill in col- onization, as both tradition and contemporaneous history say that you have been largely instrumental in the colonization of both the upper and also another place. But, however you may have gotten it, you have the .pull'; and you must help me. I need you with most pressing need. My situation is peculiar: unique; 'in a gang by itself'. Now, the fact is, I must have two mansions up there where you are going to take me-can't get along without them: one, for reasons already stated, right in the perpendicular over the aforementioned little red hill in Rockingham County, N. C .; and the other similarly right over a decayed mining camp in Eureka County, Nev .; and, like Proserpine iu the fable, I must be permitted by the authorities up there to spend one half of the ecles- tial year in the Eureka and the other half in the Rockingham 'mansion in the skies'."
Honorable Robert D. Gilmer Attorney-General of North Carolina
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That, beloved residents, is a somewhat, though feeble, expression of the manner in which we, the wanderers, have felt and do feel towards you, the more sedate and the more stable.
Perhaps you may spare a moment to hear a few words as to what others than the North Carolina non-residents think of you. But here for the want of facts I can speak only generally, as to what Westerners sometimes think of Easterners; and by no means specifically, of what Westerners think of North Carolinians. For I know of but one North Carolinian other than myself in Nevada; and as soon as I get back there he and I are going to form a "'North Carolina Society ".
About two years ago a new mining region was discovered in Nye County, Nev. The mines are situated on the side of a bleak, barren mountain, with desert valleys stretehing miles and miles away at its foot. The new district was named Tonapáh. Within one and one-half years a town of five thousand people has sprung up there. A great many Easterners have gone to it-some from intellectual Boston, some from quiet Pennsylvania, some from busy, bus- tling New York, and some from elsewhere of the East; but so far as I know none from North Carolina. Tonapah is sixty miles from the railroad; and the way thereto is across dry. hot, desert valleys, and over equally-hot and dry mountains. A party of the above-named Easterners came out on their way to Tonapáh, and made inquiry as to how they could know the way from the rail- road to the camp. Father Butler told them to have no fear, that they coukl not miss it; for a great many Easterners had passed over during the Summer, and the way was blazed with beer bottles!
This is the opinion the Western man entertains on a prominent character- istic of the Eastern man, to wit: his temperance.
His opinion of the Eastern man's characteristic in another direction may perhaps be illustrated by the following: A far Easterner-that is, a Cockney- came out to the mining region; and thongh on pleasure bent he had yet a cautious mind. Stopping at one of the well-kept mining-region hotels, he rose early as a health measure; and seeing a mountain, as he supposed, but a short distance out, concluded that an ante-breakfast walk to it would promote appe- tite. He set out : but, as is well known, the atmosphere of the mining region of the United States is so pure, so free from moisture, and so packed with ozone or some other scientific something that I know nothing about, that objects seen through it "seem so near and yet they are so far". On went our tourist hour after hour. The mountain seemed near, but really was still far. With John Bull tenacity, having once started, he persisted. and finally reached the moun- tain, returning to his hotel calling loudly for an eleven-o'clock breakfast, his physical feeling being, as a delicate young lady said after a long round dance in hot weather, "all of a glow''.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, North Carolinians, both the resident and the non-resident, I beseech you not here to enter a ton vigorous plea for repose-per- mit me to say this phrase is elegant Nevadaese when a dull speaker is requested by a wearied auditor "to give him a rest", meaning to leave the oratorical bema-I say do not just now make a plea for repose, saying to me that you have heard all that; give us something new or repose. Of course you have heard all that, long ago; and did I not know that you had? But I will " het the oysters for the mess" that you have not heard all of the story. What you have heard was the story of the tourist of the bygone time; that which I am to tell you is the story of him today-a "current number", so to speak.
F. N. C. R .- VIII
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But with me, I beg, again to the story. The landiord, kind-hearted soul, carefully explained the atmospheric phenomenon in question, ending with a few words of caution that our tourist should indeed be careful lest through the deceptive atmosphere he sometime lose his life in passing over valleys, moun- tains, and rivers.
Our tourist carefully jots down in his note book, "Must be careful"'- "Atmosphere very deceptive"-"Objects very distant seem very near'' --- "May, in consequence, lose life in passing oyer valleys, mountains, and rivers".
Next day he asked his landlord for new scenes of interest aud pleasure. Boniface replied that that morning he himself was going in his buggy up the grade to the charming and picturesque little mining town of Snugville; that after a half-hour spent in business there he would go down the grade on the south side of Lake Cascade to the road leading from the hotel to a new mining eamp a few miles to the south, in which he was interested; that our tourist could take a seat with him in the buggy, enjoy the beautiful scenery of the drive and of the lake, and get out at the junction of the lake grade and the main road leading south, and then by a four-mile walk northward, during which he would see and cross the beautiful Caseade River, get back again to his hotel in good time and with well-whetted appetite for a rare lunch that had already been ordered for him. The trip was made, and our tourist left at the junction. The landlord went to his mines and returned by the way of Snug- ville, completing there the business of the morning; and by noon reached the hotel, expecting to see our hero, if not "all aglow"' as on the previous morning. vet well prepared with appetite keen for the luneh. To his surprise our tourist had not been seen. Boniface waited hour after hour for him; finally, at three o'clock p. m., set out to see what was the matter; and found our hero sitting with look dejected and forlorn on the opposite bank of Cascade River. a stream four feet wide and one foot deep. The landlord called out: "What is the mat- ter? How long have you been here? Why have you not come home for lunch? What are you waiting for?" The tourist, putting his hands to his mouth to form something of a speaking trumpet, responded: "Matter enough; I have been here since eleven o'clock; am hungry as Hades; and am waiting for the blasted ferry boat!"
This is often the opinion that the Westerner has as to one eharacteristie of the Easterner-that he is sometimes after being imprudently caught in "wild- eat" mining speculation likely to become a little over-cautious in legitimate mining enterprises.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen; after thanking you most sincerely for the very kind and courteous attention and reception that you have given me. allow me an additional moment to say that among the many and eloquent tributes of honor, love. and loyalty that were yesterday, and today thus far have been, and hereafter shall be, laid at the feet of our honored mother, the old North State, by her sons, both the resident and the non-resident, none will be more sincere than this humble one of mine, coming from the sage-brush laud. As the variegated, brilliant, and gorgeous colors of the trees and undergrowth of your valleys and mountains, and the flowers of your fields and gardens, far outshine and overpass the somber shade of the monotonous sage-brush-if monotony can be properly predicated of a color; so far does the oratory of others outshine and overpass my leaden utterances. But as the unbrilliant hue of the sage-brush has one great merit-that is, it is sempiternal: so my humble love and loyalty to my native state has also one merit-it is unflagging and unending.
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Mr. Shepard Bryan of Atlanta, Ga.
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Again thanking you for the high honor that you have done me; and assur- ing you that should you or any of you or any of the others of those living in the East, the place of light. ever do the sage-brush land the high honor of visiting it (and we earnestly hope that such may be the case), we will see that neither you nor they shall be drowned in Cascade River!
I bid you a loving farewell.
Address by Shepard Bryan, Esq .. Representative of North Carolina Society of Atlanta, Ga.
Mr. President, Ladies. and Gentlemen:
I was to have responded to the address of welcome, on yesterday, at the Opera House, in behalf of the North Carolina Society of Atlanta. A change in the program placed me on today's list of speakers. Before leaving Atlanta I had prepared a few words of thanks and grateful appreciation to the Reunion authorities for this occasion and all that it imports. But my speech was spoken by the other speakers. I must have lost my manuscript, for the speakers one after another spoke my speech. They "took and carried away " (as the larceny indictments say) part after part of my speech. Beginning with the Mecklen- burg Declaration; through the Revolutionary war; on through the terrible civil conflict; and ending with the late entanglement with the saffron-hued flag of Spain, speaker after speaker spoke my speech. They left me nothing. They left me bankrupt. They left me speechless; and as I sat and listened and waited for my time to come you may imagine the keen joy and exquisite pleasure of my torture. My condition then. this morning, forcibly reminds me of the Texas Justice of the Peace, who for years was known as "the law west of the Pecos River". The body of a dead man was found in his district, and concealed in his clothes were found by a zealous bailiff a six-shooter and a twenty-dollar bill. The discovery was reported to the Justice, and he ordered the body brought before him; whereupon he sat in solemn judgment, and gravely decided that the corpse should be fined twenty dollars for carrying concealed weapons, and the pistol be confiscated in the name of the law. You can perhaps understand my feelings as I face you today with my speech-every part of it-spoken; and I bidden nevertheless to speak.
While my formal words of thanks are gone, my heart is full. As the repre- sentative of the North Carolina Society of Atlanta, I bring to you fraternal greetings-greetings of love and patriotic friendship. This occasion signifies the deep and abiding love of the mother for her children; and in me. as their messenger, the North Carolina Atlantans send back the token that they love their mother with a tender and lasting affection. I voice their sentiment when I say: North Carolina. mother dear, God's richest blessings rest upon you!
In behalf of the same body of Carolinians, and in my own behalf, I return my sincere thanks for the generous, the hospitable, the Carolina welcome that has been today extended to the home-comers.
As I look over this splendid multitude of brave men and beautiful women, my heart swells with the thought that I am of the same blood with them: that we have common memories and common hopes: that their fathers and my fathers fought and wrought and suffered and sacrificed that this commonwealth might be, and this Republie have lite.
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Though separated from the land of our birth, we are ever mindful of the obligation which the nobility of honest Carolina blood lays upon us. As I speak, I recall that we are standing on Guilford Battle Ground. where_the ragged Con -. tinentals of the Carolina line won for themselves a crown of unfading glory and blazed out the path to Yorktown and American liberty. I remember that their sons charged at Buena Vista, and stormed the heights of Chapultepec. ] remember that a generation agone North Carolina gave to a hopeless cause the flower of her youth, and that her immortal legions at Gettysburg and Chicka- mauga poured out their blood for "a nation that rose and fell"; nor can I for- get the sacrifices of her daughters in that awful struggle-their constancy, their devoted patriotism, and their sublime courage.
But out of the darkness and gloom of defeat; out of the devastation and waste of war; with all bitterness forgotten, and forgetting all the animosities of that fratricidal strife: with her eyes set to the future; she has gone about the earnest work of upbuilding and developing, and out of chaos has carved a mighty success.
Fortune has led many of her sons and daughters to other States-where they have illustrated the sturdy qualities of their heritage. In the State of Georgia there are more than thirty thousand North Carolinians; and they are leaders. The lumber and turpentine kings of South Georgia; the prosperous planters of Middle Georgia; the business and professional men of North Georgia; number among their leaders many of the men of North Carolina. Atlanta, imperial city of the South, set upon her hills as the beacon-light of progress and industrial achievement, would be poorer indeed could the contributions of Carolina citizenship be blotted from her record. And I am here to affirm that I find among others no quality necessary for the making of a great and populous commonwealth; for the creation of an industrial empire; that the Carolina man does not possess in the highest degree. He has the courage-who doubts it? He has the business daring-listen to the hum of his spindles weaving cloth for the people of the earth: and his State has the raw material of every sort in her fertile fields and in the richness of her forests and mines.
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