UNCLE SAM'S PITTSBURGH ARSENAL
[Spoken at the Centenary Celebration, April 17th.]
These hoary walls if they could speak
What wondrous tales they'd tell!
Of many strange encounters
That long ago befell
Good Pittsburgh folks who laid these stones
One hundred years ago
When Uncle Sam looked at John Bull
As his most hated foe.
The builders in those good old days,
Who fashioned this old wall
Knew naught of graft or cheap cement:
They built things not to fall.
And so we see the magazines
And walls are just as good
As when in days of Lafayette
These sturdy bulwarks stood
And frowned on him as he passed by
As if they wished to say,
"Your day will pass but we will stand
Till centuries roll away."
They heard the dread explosion
That shook their very ground
But firm they stood as bulwarks
When stones fell all around.
Again when dreadful RIOT
Brought bloodshed in its path
These walls though dyed with crimson
Looked coldly on man's wrath.
Not even blood of soldiers
Could make them shed a tear
And that is why these sturdy walls
Have reached their hundredth year.
The moral of this little tale
Is that we should not weep and wail
But ever put away all fears
So we may live a hundred years.