EULOGIZING THE POLICE.
What peace-loving citizen of Chicago desiring her commercial prosperity and the perpetuity of American institutions, with all it means of home and protection for free-born American citizens to behold our starry banner still proudly floating from the citadel of the most free country upon God’s green earth, but will with me thank God for the blessings of peace secured to us by the prompt and steady action of our brave and noble police on the night of May 4, 1886. When forgetful of their own personal safety in their devotion to the cause of liberty, over the prostrate forms of mangled and dying comrades they charged this treacherous band of alien outlaws, beating down the red hand of anarchy which was reaching out its tentacles to usurp the birthright of this nation bequeathed to it by our ancestors and made sacred to every loyal heart by a baptism of the blood of our sires and grandsires in 1776.
Not one ray of light from one single star upon our grand old flag shall ever tarnish its glory or dim its radiance in the shadow of the crimson flag of anarchy.
With reference to that terrible night who will not with me adopt the following language:
“When can their glory fade?”
It was to us a blood fought victory, and every officer who poured out his life on that eventful night is deserving of a monument in the hearts of a grateful people and a prominent place among the wreath-crowned martyrs in the cause of liberty. Chicago’s entire force who respond so promptly to a call, discharging their duty so faithfully, are worthy the name of heroes as justly as those who have spilled rivers of blood upon the ensanguined field of Marathon or Waterloo.
What matters it now to Officer Degan and his slaughtered comrades that “boldly they fought and well.” Their widowed wives and orphan children tell the price they paid for the blessings of peace we to-day enjoy.
The maimed and suffering officers we daily behold as the result of that direful night speak plainly of what it cost them in the protection of our blood-bought privileges of 1776.
Verily, a monument of marble should be erected to their memory upon the spot where they fell, bearing the names of that gallant band who so bravely turned back the incoming tide, whose black and seething waters threatened to wreck the foundations of our social, civil and national institutions.