A FEW SPOKEN WORDS
The Consecration of the Sixties
An
Address)Given Decoration Day, May 30, 1914, at Columbus, Indiana,
before Isham
Keith Post, No. 13, Department of Indiana,
Grand Army of the Republic
Felicitations of a Five-Year-Old
A Toast Given June 23, 1914, on
behalf of the Class of 1909, at the
Annual Alumni Banquet at the Indiana State
University
By
LEWIS A. HARDING
A. B. DEGREE IN LAW, INDIANA STATE UNIVERSITY, 1909
MEMBER STATE BAR ASSOCIATION OF INDIANA, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY NINTH
JUDICIAL CIRCUIT INDIANA,
1913-1917
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PROFESSOR JOHN M. CLAPP, HEAD
OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
IN LAKE FOREST
COLLEGE AND SOMETIME INSTRUCTOR IN
CHARGE OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN
THE
INDIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
INDIANAPOLIS
B. F. BOWEN &.COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
1915
COPYRIGHT
BY
LEWIS A. HARDING
1915
INDIANAPOLIS
THE HOLLENBECK PRESS
1915
page: [3][View Page [3]]INTRODUCTION
I am glad because of the publication of these addresses. It is an excellent thing to have such actual speeches available for students to consult.
JOHN M. CLAPP,
Head of the Department of English,
Lake Forest College.
Lake Forest, Illinois, May 10, 1915.
page: [4][View Page [4]] page: 5[View Page 5]PREFACE
This printing is of two occasional speeches, "The Consecration of the Sixties," and "Felicitations of a Five-Year-Old." The one is the address delivered on Decoration Day, May 30, 1914, to the surviving veterans of the Civil War at Columbus, Indiana; the other, a toast given June 23, 1914, at the annual Alumni Banquet, at the Indiana State University at Bloomington.
Numbers of persons who heard one or the other of these two speeches and several others like them, have kindly insisted that the entire collection would "look good in print." Did some one venture that suggestion thinking possibly to prevent a waste "on the desert air?" Blessed of course be he who takes some beautiful flower of speech-- if it be really beautiful or useful-- and transplants it, ere it is wasted, and transforms it into enduring pages of print. But quite a different idea, as may be seen, prompts the presentation of these speeches selected from among a number of others.
Indeed, to date thirty-nine original discourses, similar to "The Consecration of the Sixties" and "Felicitations of a Five-Year-Old" have been preserved with these in manuscript. Too, they all are practical speeches, one would say, representing and illustrating perhaps the entire list of forms of address. And they range in subject matter from a college peace pipe oration to an appeal to a jury for the infliction of the death penalty in the trial of a murder case, from the discourse of prayer to a political exhortation, from things said at an afternoon tea to a speech of acceptance before a judicial convention, for instance, and from an address before a convention of educators to a lecture upon the lyceum platform. However, nearly all the speeches have some special setting or circumstance connected with their preparation or delivery, perchance some sidelight such as always illumines a speech or inspires the speaker, in the form possibly of some personality, an unique association, a historical fact, an ideal, an unusual purpose, some fantasy, or-- yes, fiction or even romance, which sometimes indeed do affect speech. But that is quite another matter now.
Nevertheless, in response to the suggestion of friends, only the speeches included in this presentation, two selections, are given to print at this time, and that primarily for complimentary use among only the members of the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic and the members of the class of 1909 of the Indiana State University, to whom the two speeches were respectively originally addressed. So that, in the remainder of this introductory note, chiefly only certain historical facts connected with the occasion of the delivery of the respective speeches and primarily of interest to page: 6[View Page 6] the soldiers or to the alumni, and to their friends, will be noted. As to the fiction or romance and all with the story of the "setting" and the "sidelights" of speeches enough to make a book, more of that maybe later.
The address to the veterans of the Civil War was delivered in the afternoon of Decoration Day at Columbus. Shortly after 8 o'clock in the morning members of the G. A. R. and W. R. C. met at their quarters in the County Building and proceeded to the Second Street bridge over White River, where members of the Relief Corps dropped flowers from the bridge to the river below as a tribute for the boys who died in the naval service of the War. 1 From the bridge the party went to the Garland Brook Cemetery. There the ritualistic ceremonies of both orders were given, the graves were decorated and an address was given by the Rev. Lewis King, chaplain of the Isham Keith Post. At 12 o'clock noon the members of the Retail Merchants' Association of the city closed their stores and stood in front of their places of business uncovered with bowed heads for five minutes. During that period the bells of the city were tolled and flags were at half mast.
At 2 o'clock the parade formed at the County Building and moved north on Washington Street. As the veterans did not feel able this year to make the long march, at Seventh and Washington Streets they took conveyances to the gate of the City Cemetery and thence marched on to the Soldiers' Monument in the G. A. R. lot. There, after the ritualistic ceremonies, the speech was delivered from an automobile while the speaker was shaded by an umbrella held by "Marching Through Georgia" John L. Jones. 2 It was a very hot afternoon in the open sun and in order to offset the intense heat the speech was given with a deliberate yet intense delivery. Though hot, it was a fair day; and a lively breeze from the southland played with the foliage, so that each word had to be spoken forcibly and distinctly in order that the several hundred people present might hear. The veterans stood there, some with uncovered heads, in a square group looking up at the speaker. In that group were several men who had seen Lincoln and a few who had grasped his hand. Some of them had fought in one or another of the various battles alluded to in the course of the address. The speaker was looking into the faces of men who one day as victorious soldiers had looked into the faces of Lincoln and Grant and Lee. The heart of any American would be stirred by a group of men present like that.
In that group of veterans, men of various commands and enlistments, of the local Isham Keith Post, Number 13, Department of Indiana, Grand Army of the Republic, were present as follows: of the command of the Army of the Cumberland-- William F.
1 The Evening Republican, Columbus, Indiana, May 30, 1914.
2 Mr. Jones's favorite patriotic song was "Marching Through Georgia," of which on public occasions, he would lead the singing with much enthusiasm at every opportunity.
page: 7[View Page 7] Kendall, Company I, 33rd Indiana Infantry; George Clutch, 2nd. Indiana Battery; Andrew C. Flanigan, Co. K, 145th Indiana Infantry; Gustavus A. Miller, Co. I, 33rd Ind.; 3 James S. Cochrane, Co. H, 145th Ind.; Charles O'Donnell, Co. I, 6th Ind.; William Henderson, Co. I, 138th Ind.; Charles Potter, Co. E, 17th Ind.; Tillman A. Moore, 7th Ind. Battery; Abraham Labar, 5th Ind. Battery; Thomas Brown, Co. I, 33rd Indiana Infantry; James Brown, Co. I, 145th Ind.; Vincent Browning, Co. C, 79th Ind.; George Driver, Co. E, 140th Ind.; George Kocher, Co. I, 33rd Ind.; John Newton, Co. I, 33rd Ind.; Daniel Judd, Co. B, 59th Ohio; Henry Strassner, Co. C, 4th Ohio Cavalry; David Locke, Co. F, 22nd Ind.; John E. Rush, Co. D, 140th Ind.; Noah E. Rush, Co. D, 140th Ind.; William B. Sisk, Co. A, 145th Ind., and Benjamin M. Hutchins, Co. C, 6th Ind., of Columbus, Indiana; Jacob Ault, Co. B, 22nd Ind., Ogilville, Indiana, and William A. Jones, Co. B, 22nd Ind., Waynesville, Indiana.Those present of the command of the Army of the Tennessee were as follows: Lewis C. Moore, Co. E, 93rd Indiana; William Foster, Co. H, 12th Ky.; Joshua Conn, Co. C, 7th Ind. Cavalry; William Everroad, Sr., Co. G, 67th Ind.; Martin Jewell, Co. D, 67th Ind.; Noah Reedy, Co. F, 93rd Ind.; Virgil Cavanaugh, Co. A, 93rd Ind.; William A. Abbett, Co. D, 67th Ind.; Solomon M. Glick, Co. L, 4th Ind. Cavalry; Calvin A. Adams, Co. G, 4th Ky.; Bluford Sutherland, Co. E, 67th Ind., and James C. Taylor, Co. D, 67th Ind., of Columbus, Indiana; Henry C. Hubbard, Co. A, 93rd Ind.; William Gearhart, Co. A, 93rd Ind., and Oscar Bond, 10th Ind. Cavalry, of Jonesville, Indiana; Josephus Huffer, Co. F, 11th Ind., Newbern, Indiana, and F. M. Poland, Co. D, 67th Ind., Azalia, Indiana; Dr. W. H. Butler, Co. A, 120th Ind.; Elonzo L. Robertson, Co. H, 123rd Ind.; Anson Gill, Co. F, 32nd Ohio, Columbus, Ind.; T. B. Prather, Co. D, 4th Ind., 1230 Columbia Avenue, Chicago, Illinois; (Charles Apel, state service, 9th Ind. Legion, Columbus, Indiana).
Those present of the command of the Army of the Potomac were: John L. Jones, Co. B, 6th Ind.; Jonathan Baker, Co. H, 27th Ind.; William Polen, Co. K, 13th Ind.; John A. Robertson, Co. H, 12th Ind.; William Trotter, Co. H, 12th Ind.; Amos E. Hartman, Co. K, 110th Pa., and Robert Gaddis, 5th Virginia Cavalry (Army of Virginia), of Columbus, Indiana; Lewis King, Co. H, 27th Ind., Franklin, Indiana; Eldridge Anderson, Co. H, 19th Ind., Hope Indiana; Robert Foster, Co. C, 27th Ind., National Military Home, Marion, Indiana.
One newspaper, in speaking of the occasion, said in part as follows: "'There was more general interest and more patriotic demonstration here to-day than on any previous Decoration Day in twenty years,' said a member of the local G. A. R. post Saturday
3 N. B.-- The expression "33rd Ind." is of an abbreviated form which following throughout signifies Regiment Indiana Infantry Volunteers.
page: 8[View Page 8] afternoon. The memorial services at the City Cemetery were well attended and the crowd was an unusually attentive one. The local troop of Boy Scouts accompanied the veterans to the cemetery as an escort. The services at the cemetery were most impressive and the memorial address on 'The Consecration of the Sixties,' by Prosecuting Attorney Lewis A. Harding, was an eloquent and impassioned one. The address brought tears to the eyes of many of the aged veterans and others and the speaker received many compliments on his address when it was finished." 4The other speech, "Felicitations of a Five-Year-Old," given at the Indiana State University, is a toast delivered there on the occasion of the annual Alumni Banquet, commencement week, June 23, 1914. The occasion marked the fifth anniversary of the graduation of the class of 1909 and the first reunion of that class, on behalf of which this toast was given.
In accordance with a delightful custom at many universities and colleges, one day at commencement time each year is set aside as Alumni Day. This day of all days affords a feast of festivities for the alumnus who meets again in reunion with his college mates back at their old University. On that day especially the "old grad" revives the enchantment of his college days and recounts again the glories of those "great times." The young "grad" perchance renews his earlier ambitions and formulates additional ones. According to the custom at the Indiana State University, each class of the university holds a reunion every five years. In 1914 the classes of '78, '89, '94, '99, '04 and '09 held reunions on the Alumni Day.
One of the happiest events of this day at the Indiana State University is the Alumni Banquet, held at noon in the auditorium of the Student Building. A speaker at such an occasion has a difficult, but happy opportunity, if he can aptly express or impress the subtle spirit and meaning of the day. The younger speaker on the toast list must be cautious or he gets in the position of an amateur speaking perfunctorily. He must speak in the presence of very learned people and in competition with his elders. He is not to be excused on account of his age, but on the contrary much is expected of him, perhaps for that very reason. Fortunate, however, is any speaker who, at least for the sake of the audience, on whatever occasion he speaks, aims to keep before him the ideal of a masterpiece and says the thing appropriate, be the occasion a memorial or a banquet.
At the Banquet in 1914 five hundred plates were laid. Mrs. Kate Milner Rabb, '86, of Indianapolis, was toastmaster, and the toast list was as follows: "Live Wire Alumni," Dale J. Crittenberger, '78, Anderson; "The Class of '89," Judge Bert Fessler, '89, Duluth, Minnesota; "The Larger Mission," W. H. Stout, '94, Indianapolis; "The Alumni Council," Miss Edna G. Henry, '97, Indianapolis; "For Value Received," Mrs. Lillian Corr Rogers, '99, Greenfield; "Felicitations of a Five-Year-Old," Lewis A. Harding, '09, Columbus;
4 The Columbus Daily Herald, Columbus, Indiana, June 1, 1914.
page: 9[View Page 9] "The Honor Students," President William L. Bryan; "Response," James J. Robinson, '14, Princeton.Following the Banquet, with its Neapolitan ice cream, marble cake and salted almonds presently the scene changed to the alumni-faculty baseball game; and there many a banqueter was listening next perhaps to the convincing logic of a peanut vender along the bleachers, to the frantic appeal of a faculty fan, then to a sonorous period of the umpire, and the like. And so it was that so often that day the people passed from the sublime to the delightful and from the delightful to the sublime.
It is thought the two selected speeches following may the better serve their present purpose if prefaced by this brief view of at least a part of the setting or circumstances surrounding the preparation and delivery of each.
LEWIS A. HARDING.
Columbus, Indiana, April 24, 1915.
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