E 23 .fl4a mil 'lll> < -»ii (ilass_ i>?^-ii Book .^4^, OI lUlAI. nONATIOM. ^A 3, ^^ 5 a - 1. V^ A 5 tt + S A RECORD DEDICATION OF THE MONUMENT DORCHESTER HEIGHTS, SOUTH BOSTON BUILT HY THE CO!M{MONlVE^LTH ^" M E M O R I A L -^ '* EVACUATION OF BOSTON, MARCH 17, 1776 BY r H K BRITISH TROOPS March i-j, igo2 BOSTON: I'RINTED BY ORDER OF THH GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL, WRIGHT & POTTER PRINTING COMPANY STATE PRINTERS, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND THREE D.ofD, ^pm CONTENTS FRONTlSPIECi; IMRODUCTION 5 INSCRIPTION UPON TIIH AIONIIMENT 8 RESOLVES OE THE C.LNEKAL COURT 9 Tin; PROCESSION 15 EIIE ESCORT 16 CCREMOMES AT THE MONUMENT 21 V W. Ml'RRAV CRANK 22 APDRESS OF THE GOVERNOR 2j PlIiLIC EXERCISES IN THE SOUTH BOSTON HIGH SCHOOL 25 PROGRAM 26 PRAYER OF REV. W. E. WARREN, IML, LL.D. 27 •. HENRY CAliOT LODGE 32 AIMlRESS OF THE HON. HENRY CAHOT LODGE 33 ^«%^ INTRODUCTION [HE desire of many patriotic citizens to commemorate by a suitable memorial the evacuation of the city of Boston on March 17, 1776, found substantial recognition on June 14, 1S98, in a resolve of the General Court of Massachusetts, providing for an appropri- ation of the sum of " twenty- five thousand dollars to be expended under the direction of the Gov- ernor and Council for the erection of a monument on Dorchester Heights, in the city of Boston, to commemorate the construction on said Heights, b}- General George Washington and his little army, of a redoubt, which caused the British troops under the command of General Howe to evacuate Boston." In compliance with the provisions of this re- solve;, tlie Governor appointed a committee of the Executive Council to consider the best method of obtaining a satisfactory and artistic monument, and this committee, on May 10, 1899, rccom- 5 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL mended that designs be obtained through a limited competition. After a careful consideration of the eight sets of designs submitted in com- petition, that of Messrs. Peabody and Stearns, architects, of Boston, was accepted. This design called for a structure in style which fittingly reproduced the general form and pro- portions of the Colonial Meeting House steeple, and it was accordingly so constructed. The monument is built of white marble. A plain shaft about sixty feet high rises from the platform at the summit of the hill, relieved only by a small balcony on each of the four sides. Above the main shaft the walls recede, forming a platform surrounded by a balustrade. This plat- form commands an unequaled view of Boston, its harbor and the surrounding country. A second square shaft appears above the balustrade, and the whole is crowned by an octagonal lantern. The main shaft is eighteen feet four inches square, and the extreme height of the monument from the platform to the tip of the vane is about one hun- dred and fifteen feet. The entrance to the tower is on the east side. 6 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL On the west side is a marble panel, with an inscription in gilded letters, prepared by Charles VV. Eliot, LL. D., President of Harvard University. The monument was unveiled with impressive ceremonies on March 17, 1902. The exercises held during the afternoon included a parade through the principal streets of South Boston, followed by an address at the monument by His Excellency Governor Winthrop Murray Crane, and the unveil- ing of the tablet. The oration by United States Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, together with the other formal ceremonies, were held in the assembly hall of the South Boston High School building. ON THESE HEIGHTS DURINGTHENICHTOF M^RCH 4 I77f, : THE AMERICAN TROOPS BESIEGING BOSTON i BUILT TWO REDOUBIS ( WHICH MADE THE HARBOR AM) TOWN ! UNTENABLE BY THE BRITISH FLEET AND CARRISON ON MARCH 1 7 THE BRITISH FLEET \ CARRYING IIOOO EFFECTIVE MEN AND 1000 REFUGEES DROPPED DOWN TO NANTASKET '- •' AND. THENCEFORTH BOSTON WAS FREE A STRONG BRITISH FORCE HAD BEEN LXPELLED FROM ONE OF THE UNfT^D AMERICAN COLONIES \ ■n RESOLVES •>,_aG eneral court DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL [Chapter 113] ©onimomuciUtli of ^itssitdiusctts IN THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINETY-EIGHT R ESOL VE TO PROVIDE FOR THE ERECTION OF A MONUMENT ON DORCHESTER HEIGHTS RESOLVED, That there be allowed and paid out of the treasury of the Commi)nweaIth a sum not exceeding' twenty-tlve thousand dollars, to be expended under the direction of the governor and council for the erection of a monument on Dorchester Heights, in the city of Boston, to commemorate the construction on said heights by General George Washington and his little army, of a redoubt, which caused the British troops under the command of General Howe to evacuate Boston : pro- vided, however, that no part of said sum shall be expended until the city of Boston shall have provided, without expense to the Common- wealth, a site satisfactory to the governor and council, for the erection of said monument, and shall have agreed to keep said site open and accessible to the public, under such reasonable regulations as may be necessary to protect said monument from injury, and until said city shall also have agreed to keep at its own expense said site and said monu- ment, after its erection, in proper condition and repair. House of Representatives, June 13, 1S9S. Passed. JOHN L. BATES, Speaker. In Senate, June 14, 1S98. Passed. GEORGE E. SMITH, President. June 14, 1S9S. Approved. ROGER WOLCOTT. Office of the Secretary. Boston, Nov. 26, 1902. A true copy. Witness the Great Seal of the Commonwealth. WILLIAM M. OLIN, Seerelarj' of the Commonweetlth. 10 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMOinAL, [Chapter 07] OyOinnvciuiDcuUlv of plussiichxisctts liN TIIL VLAK U^E THOUSAND MINE 11 UN UK ED AND UNE RESOLVE TO PROVIDE FOR THE COMPLETION OF THE MONU- MENT ON DORCHESTER HEIGHTS RESOLVED, That tliere be allowed aiid paid out of the treasury of the Coninionwealtli a sum not exceedini; eight thousand dollars, to be expended under the direction of the governor and council in completing the iiiimument on Dorchester Heijihts in the city of Buston commemo- rating the Construction in that place by General Washington and his army of a redoubt which caused the British trcjops under the command of General Howe to evacuate Boston on the seventeenth day of March, sev- enteen hundred and seventy-Six. House of Representatives, June C>, I90i. Passed. JAMES J. MYERS, Speaker. In Senate, June 7, 1901. Passed. RUFUS A. SOULE, Presuh-nt. June 10, 1901. Approved. W. MURRAY CRANE. Olhce of the Secretary. Boston, Nov. 26, 1902. A true Copy. Witness the Great Seal of the Commonwealth, WILLIAM M. OLIN, Secrdarv of the Commonwealth. I I DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL [Chapter 15] ©omuiouxucjiltli of ^Xassiicltwsctts IN THE YEAR ONE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND TWO RESOLVE <* TO PROVIDE FOR AN APPROPRIATION FOR DEDICATING THE MONUMENT ON DORCHESTER HEIGHTS IN THE CITY OF BOSTON RESOLVED, Tint tlie sum of live tin msand dollars be allowed and paid out uf the treasury of the ComiTKJinvealth, to be expended under the direction of the governor and council in paying the cost of dedicat- ing, on Evacuation Day, the seventeenth day of March, in the year nine- teen hundred and two, the nmnument on Dorchester Heights in the city of Boston which has been erected in memory of the evacuation of Bi>ston by the British troops. House of Representatives, Marcli 5, 1902. Passed. JAMES J. MYERS, Sp^^akci. In Sen.ite, March 5. 1902. Passed. RUFUS A. S(JIJI.E, Pn-,idcul. Marcli 5, 1902. Approved. W. MURRAY CRANE. Ollice of the Secretary. Boston, Nov. 26, igo2. A true Copy. Witness the Great Seal of the Commonwealth. WILLIAM M. ijLIN, SfiTt'ljif of the C.onmnmuvalth. 12 D () 1< C H E S T E R H H I ( . HIS MEMORIAL iClfAlTlK 1S5| (CoinmonxucuUli of plassiu:lx\xsctts IN lilt YEAR ONt THOUSAND NINK IILlNl-iKED AND TWO AN ACT MAKING AN APfKOPRlATlON FOR DEDICATING THE MONUMENT ON DORCHESTER HEIGHTS IN THE CITY OF BOSTON Be it tuacted ht> the Seuate and House of Rcpresoitatives in General Court assembled, and fy the authoritv of the same, as follows : — SrcTUiN 1. Tilt; sum nf live tlioiisaiut doliurs is hereby appropri- ated, ti> be paid mit nf the treasury ui the Cummonwealth, and to be cxpeiuled under the direction of the j;iivernor and council for the pay- ment of expenses in connection with dedicatinj;, on Evacuation Day, the seventeenth of Marcli of the present year, the monument on Dorchester Heights in the city of Boston. Section 2. This act shall take eilect ujion its passage. House of Representatives, March 12, 1902. I'assed to be enacted. .IAMBS J. MYERS, Speaker. In Senate, March ij, 1902. I'assed to be enacted. RUFUS A. SOULE, President. March 1 I, 1902. Approved. \V. MURRAY CRANE. I ilhce <>i tlie Secretary. BostN. HHNRY CABOT LODGE ADDRESS BY HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE MONG the old churches of Boston which have fallen before the march of trade was that which stood in Brattle Street, from which it took its name. Plain exter- nally in form and outline, the interior of the old church had all the dignity and simplicity charac- teristic of the school of Wren. The grace of a day that was dead, the faint perfume of the iSth century hung about the stately columns and the high-backed pews, whose occupants were obliged to gaze upwards in order to see their minister, raised high above their heads in the great ma- hogany pulpit, the gift, I believe, of John Han- cock. To this old church, which I wish might have been spared and preserved, my cliildish steps were early directed, in order that I might Icarn my catechism in the Sunday School and beneath the shadows of the Doric columns join in the simple services and be imbued with the gentle liberality of Unitarianism. It was not, however, I am sorry to say, either catechism or 35 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL doctrine or sermon which impressed me most deeply when I was first taken to Brattle Street Church, but a certain lump of iron planted con- spicuously in the side of the square tower. That bit of iron was obviously a cannon ball, and my boyish imagination was much excited when I was told that it had been fired into the town by Washington and had then found its present resting place. It did not disturb me at all that the ball was neatly set in the brick wall, just half in and half out. It was a genuine cannon ball, fired in war, and that was enough for me. But in this way the first historical event of which I became conscious was driven into my mind by the old cannon ball, just as it had itself been driven into the tower's side, if we can only believe the cherished tradition of my early days, by some of Washington's hardly acquired powder. The his- torical event which thus came out of the past and made itself real to me I need hardly say to you was the one we commemorate to-day, the successful occupation of Dorchester Heights by the American Army, which led to the immediate evacuation of the town by the British forces. Suspicion of skill- ful mason work in the position occupied by the old cannon ball of Brattle Street invaded my mind as I grew older and disturbed the happy faith of 36 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL childhood, but the fact of which the ball was the representative and symbol loomed ever larger and clearer on my mental vision. I came to understand why an American Army had fired on an American town and that this rather gruesome messenger from friends outside really put an end to the miseries which Boston had long endured for the sake of freedom and independence. Then, as my horizon widened with years of study devoted to the history of my country, I came to know that the batteries on Dorchester Heights or in Cambridge which had succeeded in reaching with their shot my old church tower were parts of a great whole, that they were the instruments and causes of a result which closed the first of our Revolutionary War, and that they formed a strong link in the chain of events then forging and destined as it length- ened to involve the civilized world and to change as the years passed by the political outlook of all civilized mankind. What was the message then of those Dorchester guns, trained by Washington against the devoted three-hilled town ? Brielly, I shall try to tell you. It is an old story, but one that does not suffer by being told over and over again, and I know that you will forgive me if I should repeat myself here 37 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL to-day, for I have told this tale at least twice in books which I have been unwise enough to write, in total disregard of Job's profound reflection touching books and men. The message of the Dorchester batteries to tliose who with their own eyes saw the black mouths and with their own ears heard the first roar of the guns was plain enough. It said to the British army that those guns must be silenced or the town given up. Failing to silence them, as we all know, they abandoned the town and Lord Howe sailed away to Nova Scotia taking with him the British soldiers and the Boston Tories. The message of Dorchester Heights to those distant from the scene and to future generations mingles with the deeper voices of that memorable time when the world was entering upon new conceptions of political rights and when the old system of privilege was beginning to quiver to its base. It is of this larger aspect of the event which we commemorate to-day that I wish to speak to you in the brief time allotted to me. If it is possible I should like to bring out clearly into light and meaning the exact place which the military movement that culminated here occupies in the events of that great period. The fieht at Concord Bridge, the first shot in DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL the Revolution, the first drumbeat in the march of the coming democracy had broken on a some- what slumberous world in April, 1775. In June came the famous attempt to drive the British from Boston by taking a position in Charlestown which would make their occupation of the town untenable. The result was the Battle of Bunker Hill, orreat slaughter amoncj the soldiers of the Crown and a technical British victory more disas- trous to England than any battle she had ever lost. To Washington, spurring on his way to take command of the army, came the news of the fight. "Did the militia fight?" was his one preg- nant question. When told how they had fought, he said, "Then the liberties of the country are safe," and rode on. Give him men who would fight and he would do the rest. You can hear across the vanished years the tones of the crucial question and the note of confidence in the words he utters as he rides away. Yes, the material very raw, but very good and sound, was all there gathered about Bos- ton, and now was added to it the great com- mander, and out of the combination was to come an army, and in due time results very necessary to the American cause at that moment. But the attain- ment of those results was a heavy work, taxing 39 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL to the utmost the strong will, the steady patience and the great talents of the commander-in-chief. Old levies went away, the ranks were perilously thinned, and new levies had to be brought in and molded into an organized, disciplined force. Pow- der gave out, and with this fatal secret locked in his heart Washington had to maintain his bold front and seek fresh supplies of this one essential thing in every direction by sea and land. Then as he drew his lines ever closer he was met by the seemingly invincible obstacle that there were not sufficient guns fit for siege work. So Henry Knox went up through the snow to Ticonderoga and brought thence on sledges the guns of the cap- tured fortress. Thus as winter drew to an end, in one way or another, the General had done his work. His army was drilled and organized, pow- der and siege artillery had been procured, the instrument he had so painfully and patiently fashioned was ready to his hand, and impatience to grasp the result for which he had labored so long began to take possession of him. Soon after his arrival at Cambridge he had pro- posed to assault the town and was held back by a council of war. Then came the trials of winter and now he was ready again. In February he proposed to cross on the ice and attack, and once 40 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL more the council of war, true to the traditions of their kind, withstood him. But this time he was fully ready, this time he meant to fight, council or no council, in one way, if not in another. He proposed with all the force of his strong nature to have the town, with the British or without them, and to take it then and there. If he could not cross the ice and storm Boston he would go thither by land. Washington had been slowly strengthening and advancing his works all through the winter. Now he determined upon a decisive stroke, and on the evening of March 4, under cover of a heavy bombardment, he moved forward, took pos- session of Dorchester Heights and began to throw up redoubts. All night the work went on. The troops who did it came from the Cape and from Essex, from Middlesex and the western counties, and from all over New England. In the early days of the past summer their personal independence, their indifference to discipline and their careless ways had moved Washington to anger more than once. But now he had learned to know them, while they had come to a great faith in him, and so they worked now with all the energy, quickness and intelligence of their race. Rufus Putnam, destined to lasting famt; as one of 41 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL the pioneers and founders of Ohio, devised the "chandeliers", as they were called, from which the breastworks were constructed. Everyone did his best, and these fishermen and farmers of New England, now soldiers in the American army, toiled on with strong and willing arms through the dark hours of the chill March night, while up and down the lines rode Washington, encouraging the men and urging on the work. I like to think of that scene, of the dim hidden lights flaring fitfully in the gusty wind, of the men piling up the earth and digging out the trenches with the darkness hanging over them, the roar of the covering guns sounding in their ears, and along the lines the stately figure of the great leader passing by, the joy of coming battle stirring strongly in his heart. Morning dawned, and the works were visible to Boston. Great stir then among the British. Those works must be destroyed, or they must abandon the town. Preparations were hastily made for an attack on the following day. The morrow came and there was a gale so that they could not cross the bay ; the next day it rained heavily. The next day it was too late, for during all those days and nights the American soldiers had worked on and the Commander-in-Chief had continued to ride up and down the lines to such 42 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL purpose that his redoubts were no longer open to direct assault. Then the Ticonderoga guns opened on Boston, and the enemy opened a parley through the selectmen. Howe promised to evacuate if not attacked, but if attacked said that he would burn the town. Washington assented. 1 1 owe delayed, and Washington, being no lover of delays or hesitations, advanced his works. The hint was taken, and on March 17, amid much dis- order and pillage, eleven thousand British troops, with about as many hundred Americans, went on board the lleet, while Washington and his army marched in at the other end of the town, worn and broken by the siege, and with small-pox, the dread disease of that century, threatening those of the inhabitants who still remained. The siege was over. The British lingered for a few days near the entrance to the harbor, closely watched by Washington, and then sailed away for Halifax. In a purely military way a very remarkable victory had been achieved, some- thing well worth the consideration of a ministry in distant London, not over-addicted to sustained thought. I might give much space and many words to this victory, but I shall not, for I cannot improve upon Washington's own terse and simple statement : "To maintain" he said, "a post within 43 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL musket shot of the enemy for six months together without powder, and at the same time to disband one army and recruit another within that dis- tance of twenty odd British regiments is more, probably, than was ever attempted." He might have added that during considerable portions of that period he had held the British shut up in Boston with a less force than their own. The siege of Boston and its results are among the events of the war which prove Washington's great military talents as well as his power in the command of men in a very high degree. My purpose, however, to- day, is not to discuss the genius of Washington as a soldier and leader of men, but to try to place in their true light the relations of this victory won by Washington and his New England army to the other events of a memorable time. Judged in connection with the outcome of the Revolutionary War, which resulted in the independence of the Thirteen States, the evacuation of Boston, com- pelled as it was by the establishment of our batteries upon Dorchester Heights, was of far- reaching importance. It ranks with Trenton and Saratoga, with King's Mountain and Greene's cam- paign, with Yorktown and the destruction of Brit- ish commerce by American privateers, as one of the decisive achievements in our struggle against 44 DOR CHESTER HEIGH IS MEMORIAL England. There is not the same brilliancy about it that there is about some of the battles of the Revolution, because we finally regained the town without actual conflict. It did not reach so far into the future as Clark's bold march into the Illinois country, which carried our boundaries to the Mississippi. And yet it may be doubted if any single event had more general effect on the course of the war than the expulsion of the Brit- ish from the New England capital. With the departure of Lord Howe's fleet, the British went finally out of New England. Except for the fight at Bennington, which was an incident of the cam- paign directed against New York, and of the temporary occupation of Newport, which hardly rose above the level of a raid, New England after the 17th of March, 1776, was entirely free from the enemy. It must be remembered that at that period the New England States had the largest and most compact population of all the colonies. Their people were nearly all white. They were practically free from the burden of slaves, who added numbers to the Southern population, but nothing to the fighting strength. There was very little division of sentiment among the New Eng- landers. Like Virginia, and unlike the Carolinas and the Middle States, New England had few 45 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL loyalists, so few in fact that they were utterly un- able to raise the standard of civil war, as was done in the South and in New York. The free- dom of the New England States, therefore, from the enemy and from any domestic dangers, left them at liberty to furnish troops to the Continen- tal Army, and from New England the Army of Washington, which represented the cause of the entire country, and in some dark hours carried alone the fate and fortune of the Revolution, was largely recruited. Had those states been exposed to the same perils and dissensions as the Carolinas and New York, or had their capital city remained in the hands of the enemy, this would have been impossible, and the largest white population in the Colonies would have been shut off from the American cause, as a large and steady source of supply for the rank and file of the Continental Army. The enormous importance of New Eng- land in this aspect of the American cause was clearly perceived by the British, who devoted some of tlicir most energetic efforts to cutting off New England, after they had lost it, from the rest of the country, by getting possession of the line of the Hudson. It was to prevent this that Washington fought the dreary campaign which succeeded the retreat from the city of New York. 46 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL It was with this purpose in view that Burgoyne descended from the North, only to meet with ruin at Saratoga. One of the last attempts of the enemy was in the same direction, when they en- deavored to get possession of West Point through the treason of Arnold. To keep the most popu- lous portion of the Colonies free to render service with money and men to the common cause of all the colonies, therefore, was a military object of the very first importance, and this was achieved by Washington when he drove the British from Bos- ton on the 17th of March. This, in itself, is enough to justify the erection of a monument at this spot, for it was here on Dorchester Heights that the deed was done which so powerfully contributed to the success of the American Revolution. But this is merely the im- mediate historical aspect of the victory which those batteries on Dorchester Heights achieved. An event which was among those that decided the outcome of the American Revolution has a much larger significance than that which was merely military and contemporary, for the American Revo- lution was the beginning of that series of vast changes which have made the world as we know it now. The social and political commonplaces of to-day were the daring aspirations, the untried 47 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL hopes, the gleaming visions of the closing years of the eighteenth century. The American Revolu- tion, which began at Lexington and Concord and ended at Yorktown, was the first step in the great movement which swept away privileges, made de- mocracy a reality, and converted the doctrine that all civilized governments ultimately derive their power from the whole body of the community from a dream to a maxim. The establishment of this new principle was destined to convulse the world. Passing from America to France it there altered the face of Europe and filled the world with war. Checked at Waterloo, the movement took up its march again in 1830, when the Bour- bon monarchy was destroyed in France and the Reform Bill was passed in England, and culminated again in 1848 in revolutionary uprisings, which, whether successful or unsuccessful at the moment, none the less forced on still further the fundamental change in politics and in society which had begun so long ago on Lexington Common and at Con- cord Bridge. The people of the Thirteen Colonies for the first time demonstrated to the world that a new force had arisen, the force of a people in arms, fighting not for a dynasty nor to gratify a king's ambition, but for themselves. It was this new force which enabled revolutionary France to 48 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL fling back the old fashioned armies of banded Europe in hopeless defeat. Therefore, the Ameri- can Revolution was a very great event, not only to ourselves, but in the history of mankind, and it is well for us to mark every stage of its prog- ress with monuments and to learn its history in all details. But there was another meaning quite as deep, quite as important to the future, in the American Revolution as the fact that it was the beginning of a (Treat democratic movement. It is usual to date the passing away of the Middle Ages and the rise of what we call modern history from two great events, the reformation of religion, begun by Luther, and the discovery of America. Un- doubtedly that discovery of the new world finally changed to the very foundations all the condi- tions, political, social and economic, which existed at the time when Columbus started on his great voyage, but many years were to elapse, and Columbus, and the Cabots, and Magellan were to be many years in their graves before the world- wide effects of what they had done were to be- come operative. Very slowly indeed did the new world come into the possession of the people of Western Europe. Very slowly did the settlements made by Europe in America rise into commer- 49 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL cial importance, or gather wealth and population enough to make them considered as a factor in the world's affairs. Spain looked upon her col- onies as little more than mines from which the precious metals were to be drawn. The Eng- lish colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America struggled slowly upwards, little heeded by the mother country, and little known except by the merchants who traded with them. But all the time they were gathering strength, and at last, through the ignorance of certain little minis- terial minds, ill-fitted to manage a great empire, they were driven forward into independence. The people rose up in the Thirteen Colonies and fought their own battle, and won it. But they won a great deal more than independence — they won the opportunity to make a great nation. If they had remained colonies of England they would have been as insignificant in the world's affairs as her other colonies are to-day, but when they ceased to be a part of the British empire they entered upon the path which alone could lead them to a greatness of their own, destined to affect the world's economy more profoundly than anything which had happened in modern times. The people who thus set themselves free from England had added to their predominant English 50 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL stock kindred people from Germany and Holland, from Scotland and from Ireland, as well as Hu- guenots from France, but all belonged essentially to a ruling and governing race. The men who had settled on the Atlantic shores of North America were the men of adventure, men who were ready to take tlieir lives and fortunes in their hands and go forth into the wilderness. Set free from the bonds which held them to the British Empire, it would have been as impossible to con- fine that people so bred and nurtured within the limits of their own original states, as it would have been to have stayed the waters of the Mis- sissippi on their way to the ocean. Even in the throes of the Revolution they had pushed their way to the Great River, and the children of men who had taken possession of a new continent could not rest until they had conquered it all. Only one great danger really hung over them, and that was that they might divide among themselves. In the slow process of years that hour of peril came. The result was the consolidation of the United States, the greatest single event, if judged by its world wide meaning, of the nineteenth cen- tury, surpassing even in meaning and importance the consolidation of Germany which followed a few years later. Once that consolidation was effected 5t DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL and the scars which it had left effaced, the onward march which had begun under George Rogers Clark was again taken up. From the Atlantic to the Pacific the continent was subdued to the uses of the people who had entered in and possessed it, and then with that great work done the United States strode into the world arena strong with all the gathered strength of its hundred years of growth and labor. New problems meet us now under the new conditions, and we must face them as those who have gone before faced the trials of their own time. In the process of evolution we have seen the nation grow and expand, we have watched the foreign flags departing one after another from the American Hemisphere and have seen our own rise in the Orient, in the West Indies and in distant islands of the Pacific. What the future has in store for us no one can tell. That it is to be a great future no one doubts. To the soldiers working in the Dorchester trenches, to the great commander riding along the toiling lines, the future was veiled in darkness as black as the March night which hung coldly over them. Yet they worked on doing the best that was in them, with faith only that they would conquer the present and that the future would repay. That future has now come and we their children turn 52 DORCHESTER HEIGHTS MEMORIAL to them in gratitude and honor their memories. Here on this spot we raise a monument which shall sei-\'e as a beacon light to guide future gen- erations to one of the memorable scenes of our history. And here under its shadow we can rear a still better monument to the men of the Rev- olution by the resolve that we too will toil even as they did, in darkness and in light, with victory over the present, with deep faith in the future and with abiding loyalty to our beloved country ever dominant in our hearts, ever master of our lives. ( ( ni-- LIBRARY OF C5r^^^'"""l|l 011 712 244 A