^^^ 
 
 
 r. t<. A^ /^Va''" '^^^ ^.^'^^'^ * 
 
 
 
 
 
 V-O^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■,r^ 
 
 
 v^* .'W^>- *-?^.../ /JSfe\ 
 
 
 ,'A' 
 
 .^^ 
 
 
 
 
 ^O-n: 
 
 
 mMi ^^ 
 
 
 -.-.V,.- A 
 
 
 o 
 
 ,"?; 
 
 <!y^ . v . ^ %i>. 
 
 . ^^0^ 
 
 0° -iJi^' % 
 
 <^^ 
 
 ,<!-' 
 
 
 
 
 

 ^°^t. 
 
 
 
 
 
y 
 
 /v^tyy 
 
 'k' ^-^^ 
 
 j ^^ylA^^*^ 
 
 National iH^monal Assoriattott 
 
 OFFICEIS: \A/ASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 OFFICERS 
 
 President 
 
 MR JUSTICE JOHN M. HARLAN 
 
 Vice-Presiaents 
 
 HON. GEORGE B. CORTELYOU 
 
 HON. HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND 
 
 MR. JUSTICE DAVID J. BREWER 
 
 HON. JOHN F. DILLON 
 
 HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE 
 
 HON. JOSEPH H. CHOATE 
 
 Secretary 
 
 MR. FRANKLIN W. COLLINS 
 
 Assistant Secretary 
 
 MR.PAULE. SLEMAN 
 
 Treasurer 
 
 HON. MILTON E. AILES 
 
 Vice-President Rlggs National Bank. 
 Washington. L». C. 
 
'HZ A3 
 
 linarb of Srustrra 
 
 ^^#^ 
 
 Mr. Justice John M. Harlan, of Kentucky 
 
 Mr. Justice David J. Brewer, of Kansas 
 
 Hon. George B. Cortelvou, of New York 
 
 Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts 
 
 Admiral George Dewey, U. S. Navy 
 
 Brig.-Gen. George B. Davis, U. S. Army 
 
 Governor Curtis Guild, Jr., of Massachusetts 
 
 Governor George L. Sheldon, of Nebraska 
 
 Hon. Joseph H. Choate. of New York 
 
 General Horace Porter, of New York 
 
 Dr. Andrew D. White, of New York 
 
 Judge John F. Dillon, of New York 
 
 Mr. Justice Josiah A. Van Orsdel, of Wyoming 
 
 Hon. Henry B. F. Macfarland, of the District of Columbia 
 
 Hon. Milton E. Ailes, of the District of Cokmibia 
 
 Hon. Frank A. Vanderlip, of New York 
 
 Dr. Daniel C. Gilman, of Maryland 
 
 Hon. Jesse Wilson, of Indiana 
 
 Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, of New York 
 
 Mr. Samuel W. Woodward, of the District of Columbia 
 
 Mr. George R. Peck, of Illinois 
 
 Hon. Philip M. Ashford, of Ohio 
 
 Mrs. Gertrude Atherton, of California 
 
 Mr. William H. Ball, of Pennsylvania 
 
 Mr. Aldis B. Browne, of the District of Columbia 
 
 Mr. William E. Curtis, of Illinois 
 
 Hon. George W. Dixon, of Illinois 
 
 Mr. George W. Evans, of the District of Columbia 
 
 Hon. Henry D. Estabrook, of New York 
 
 Mr. George A. King, of the District of Columbia 
 
 Hon. Jasper L. McBrien, of Nebraska 
 
 Mr. Thomas C. Noye.s, of the District of Columbia 
 
 Mr. Stanton Peelle, of the District of Columbia 
 
 Mr. Arthur Perkins, of Connecticut 
 
 Hon. George E. Roberts, of Illinois 
 
 Mr. Paul E. Sleman, of the District of Columbia 
 
 Mr. J. Henry Small, Jr., of the District of Columbia 
 
 Mr. Sanford H. Steele,- of New York 
 
 Mr. Franklin W. Collins, of Nebraska 
 
National iH^mnrial AfiBnnattnn 
 
 ^ Washington, D. C, February 12, 1908. 
 
 <^ 
 
 To all Patriotic and Appreciative Americans: 
 
 - It is our conviction — and this we believe you will share — • 
 ^^ — that the debt America owes to Alexander Hamilton is im- 
 ^ measurable. 
 
 It has been said by a discerning writer that "he, more than 
 any other of our early statesmen, did the thinking of his 
 time." 
 
 By those who have made painstaking and discriminating 
 study of the events of our early history, it is confidently 
 asserted that Hamilton more than any other man was instru- 
 mental in creating the government of the United States. Cer- 
 tain it is he conceived and created our entire fiscal system. 
 
 Both in war and peace, he was the trusted comrade, coun- 
 selor and confidant of Washington. 
 
 He not only shaped the Constitution but later saved it from 
 ignominious defeat. It was Hamilton also who first suggested 
 the doctrine of its implied powers. 
 
 To him is America indebted not only for national unity but 
 for national integrity and security. 
 
 "He caught the drowning credit of America by the locks 
 and dragged it into life." 
 
 With w^hat seems to us to have been almost more than mortal 
 vision, he peered into the future and made bountiful provision 
 for all our national needs. 
 
 He is acknowledged to have been America's foremost con- 
 structive statesman, and as such having wrought mightily for 
 us, merits the undying gratitude of all his countrymen. 
 
 Niebuhr characterizes him as "great as the greatest." 
 
 Of him Guizot said : 
 
 "Hamilton must be classed among the men who have best 
 known the vital principles and fundamental conditions of gov- 
 ernment. There is not in the Constitution of the United 
 States an element of order, of force, of duration, which he 
 has not powerfully contributed to introduce into it and cause 
 to predominate." 
 
And Talleyrand : 
 
 "I have known nearly all the marked men of my time, but 
 never one on the whole equal to Hamilton. He divined 
 Europe." 
 
 In our own times, Joseph Chamberlain, speaking in Guild 
 Hall, recently declared : 
 
 "Of all the remarkable men produced by the revolutionary 
 period the greatest was Alexander Hamilton." 
 
 And James Bryce (whom all Americans have learned to 
 love), in his "American Commonwealth," after comparing 
 him favorably with Washington, pays him this exalted tribute : 
 
 "Equally apt for war and civil government, with a profun- 
 dity and aptitude of view rare in practical soldiers and states- 
 men, he stood in the front rank of a generation never sur- 
 passed in history — a generation which includes Burke, Fox, 
 Grattan, Von Humboldt, Wellington, and Napoleon." 
 
 At the opening meeting of this Association the same high 
 authority (now the British Ambassador) spoke in highest 
 praise of Hamilton and the project to honor his memory, say- 
 ing: "Hamilton was a thinker for the world, one of universal 
 history's exceptional and brilliant men. His genius is worked 
 into the very body and tissue of your institutions. I agree 
 with Senator Lodge that his description of Hamilton as the 
 greatest constructive statesman of the nation is not overpraise." 
 
 No other American statesman, wath the possible exception 
 of Washington, has won such lasting fame throughout the 
 world as he, or deservedly gained such prestige from those 
 qualified to speak. 
 
 Probably no man stands higher in American jurisprudence 
 than Chancellor Kent. He said : 
 
 "Hamilton did more with his tongue and pen than any 
 other man, not only with reference to the origin and adoption 
 of the Federal Constitution, but also to create and establish 
 public credit; and defend the Government and its measures 
 under the wise and careful administration of Washington." 
 
 Likewise Ambrose Spencer, also a profound jurist of the 
 period and a political opponent, eulogizes him as follows : 
 
 "Alexander Hamilton was the greatest statesman this coun- 
 try has ever produced. In power of reasoning Hamilton was 
 the equal of Webster, and more than that can be said of no 
 man. In creative power Hamilton was infinitely Webster's 
 
superior, and in this respect was endowed as God endows the 
 most gifted of our race." 
 
 Of him Dr. John Lord (in his Beacon Lights) says: 
 
 "There is one man in the poHtical history of the United 
 States whom Daniel Webster regarded as his intellectual 
 superior — and this was Alexander Hamilton." 
 
 No finer tribute was ever paid by one statesman to the genius 
 of another than that of Webster to Hamilton, when he said : 
 
 "He smote the rock of the national resources and abundant 
 streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse 
 of public credit and it sprang upon its feet. The fabled birth 
 of Minerva from the brain of Jove was hardly more sudden 
 or more perfect than the financial system of the United 
 States as it burst forth from the conceptions of Alexander 
 Hamilton." 
 
 President Daniel C. Gilman pays high homage to Hamil- 
 ton's spotless integrity as well as transcendent ability, and 
 says: 
 
 "Hamilton now stands above reproach among the immor- 
 tals." 
 
 Mr. Justice Harlan of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States says : 
 
 "None of the patriotic statesmen of the revolutionary period 
 deserves to be held in more affectionate remembrance by lovers 
 of our free institutions than Hamilton. It might be deemed 
 extravagant to affirm that we owe the adoption of our present 
 Constitution to some one particular person. But it is quite 
 safe to say that that momentous result was due as much to 
 Hamilton as to any single individual in our early history. All 
 admit that in securing the acceptance of the Constitution by 
 the people of the requisite number of states, his services were 
 pre-eminent. * * * y[y cordial wishes are for the suc- 
 cess of the movement to perpetuate, by monument or in some 
 other appropriate way, the memory of the extraordinary man 
 and patriot whose genius for public affairs has rarely been 
 equalled, never excelled, in any country. Visitors from other 
 countries may well be surprised that they do not find at the 
 National Capital a conspicuous monument to Alexander Ham- 
 ilton. Let us hope that the past neglect of the country will 
 be remedied by the success of the plan on hand." 
 
 And Mr. Justice Brewer, of the same august tribunal, says : 
 
 "I am heartily in sympathy with the proposition to place a 
 suitable statue of Hamilton in this city. To few men is this 
 
country more indebted than to Alexander Hamilton, who was 
 emphatically one of those, of whom we often hear but seldom 
 see, a constructive statesman. His labors in framing and 
 securing- the adoption of the Constitution and in creating that 
 financial system which still obtains in this country and which 
 has given to it unlimited credit throughout the world, entitles 
 him to the gratitude due every patriotic citizen of the United 
 States. I shall be very glad to see accomplished this act of 
 tardy justice." 
 
 Likewise the i)resent Secretary of the Treasury, Hon. George 
 Bruce Cortelyou, in a recent tribute to Hamilton : 
 
 "If you were asked to designate from among all the men of 
 the colonial and revolutionary period of our history that one 
 who most fully realized the ideas we have in mind when we 
 speak of a constructive statesman, the name of Hamilton 
 would instantly suggest itself as an answer to the inquiry. 
 From the time when, a boy of i8, he was firing the hearts of 
 the colonists by his denunciation of the misrule of the mother 
 country, to the hour when he went to his death at Weehawken, 
 his active mind seems to have been planning measures of the 
 greatest moment for the benefit of the land of his adoption." 
 
 Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, in an address 
 at the initial meeting of the association said : 
 
 "Hamilton was a brilliant soldier who led a charge that 
 carried a redoubt at Yorktown; he was the greatest political 
 writer of his time; he was a great lawyer and a great orator, 
 and, after all these years which have passed, it may be truly 
 said that he was the greatest constructive statesman whom the 
 nation has known. 
 
 "It is not creditable to the nation that there should be no 
 statue in Washington to the man who did more than any other 
 to organize the nation, and I hope that I shall live to see the 
 day when the statue shall stand before the Treasury, looking 
 toward the Capitol." 
 
 Encomiums need not be multiplied. 
 
 Surely such a man has deserved well of his country, and his 
 memory should be perpetuated as long as our country lives 
 among the nations. 
 
 What have we done to show our appreciation of the match- 
 less services and sterling worth of this nation-builder ? 
 
Among the many monuments and statues erected in the 
 parks and open places of the Nation's Capital to perpetuate 
 the memory of our distinguished and deserving dead, we scan 
 the various pedestals in vain for any sculptured figure of or 
 memorial to Alexander Hamilton. To many this will seem 
 incredible. To all it should seem intolerable. 
 
 Washington has been repeatedly and rightfully remembered. 
 The Nation's love for our first President has found expression 
 in at least three heroic figures in marble and bronze in various 
 parts of the city, in addition to the splendid shaft that rises 
 on the banks of the Potomac. 
 
 Hamilton, on whom Washington leaned most heavily, both 
 in war and peace — "his chief support, his oracle and guide," 
 has been overlooked. 
 
 Remarkable to relate, the American people have permitted 
 over lOO years to elapse since he left us, without taking any 
 steps looking to the erection of a suitable memorial to him at 
 the seat of government. 
 
 To us this neglect seems unpardonable. 
 
 An organization has therefore been effected, national in its 
 scope, to accomplish this long delayed act of simple justice. 
 A charter has been obtained under the laws of the District 
 of Columbia, and a determined effort will be put forth in 
 every section of the country to raise the funds required for 
 this purpose. 
 
 It is believed that one of the best and most appropriate sites 
 in Washington is available and that a magnificent memorial to 
 the man whose memory we cherish, may be secured at a total 
 expenditure of $100,000. None but the finest of designs, ma- 
 terials, and workmanship will be permitted to enter into the 
 structure. 
 
 The project has received the warmest commendation of 
 the President of the United States, who writes : 
 
 "I heartily endorse the movement in which you are en- 
 gaged. It is little short of a scandal that there should be no 
 monument to Alexander Hamilton in Washington. Wishing 
 you all success. 
 
 "Theodore Roosevelt.^' 
 
 Strong and sympathetic words have also come from Hon. 
 \\^hitelaw Reid, our embassador to England, and many other 
 distinguished men. 
 
 By unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees it has been 
 decided to invite patriotic societies to select one member to act 
 
in conjunction with the Association in furtherance of its aims. 
 The following are named: 
 
 Sons of the American Revolution. 
 Daughters of the American Revolution. 
 Society of Colonial Wars. 
 Society of the Cincinnati, 
 Society of Colonial Dames. 
 The Military Order of the Loyal Legion. 
 The Hamilton Clubs of Chicago and Brooklyn have already 
 given their strong approval of the movement and will aid in 
 its consummation. 
 
 Every admirer of Alexander Hamilton — which should mean 
 every lover of his country and its institutions — is invited to be- 
 come a subscriber to the fund and a member of the Association. 
 The names of the men who constitute the Board of Trus- 
 tees are a sufficient guarantee to all of the integrity of the 
 undertaking and the fidelity of its management. 
 
 Every dollar subscribed will be honestly accounted for, and 
 conscientiously devoted to the object to be attained. 
 
 Will you not join the promoters of this project in carrying 
 it to complete and speedy success? 
 
 All communications relating to the Association should be 
 addressed to the Secretary, and all checks, drafts, money orders, 
 or payments of money should be made payable to the Treas- 
 urer. Hon. Milton E. Ailes, Vice-President of the Riggs Na- 
 tional Bank of this city, who will receipt and account for the 
 same. 
 
 By order of the Association. 
 
 Franklin W. Collins, 
 
 Secretary. 
 8 Jackson Place, Washing^ton, D. C. 
 
 W S4 
 

 
 
 -Jy^ ...., '^i^ .n"^ ,.o-», -^n "" .,<^> 
 
 <^ *.m 
 
 
 
 
 
 •\' 
 
 
 
 
 O.I.* .( 
 
 .0 
 
 
 ^oV'^ 
 
 <\> $ • • »• "T^ 
 
 ^*i°^ ' 
 
 
 :..c:f^.;,'^ "o .^"^ **^v7^>.t- 
 
 
 
 V* . 
 
 
 
 ^ '^^ 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f' V 
 
 1989 
 
 '"^"^"^^^^