A little mountain town of some five hundred inhabitants, named Meeker, for the heroic man who there met his tragic death, now marks the site of the massacre. Even at this day it is forty-five miles from the nearest railroad station, Rifle, on the Denver and Rio Grand scenic route. The little town reminds one of Florence, Italy, in the way it is surrounded by amethyst mountains, and the White River on which it is located is far more beautiful than the turbid Arno. The name of Nathan Cook Meeker is held in the greatest reverence by the people of the entire region.
On an August afternoon more than twenty years after this tragedy a visitor to Colorado stood on the site of the massacre under a sky whose intense blue rivalled that of Italy. With the peaceful flow of the river murmuring in the air and the hum of insects in the purple-flowered alfalfa, the tragic scene seemed to rise again and impressed its lesson,—the ethical lesson of apparent defeat, disaster, and death in the outer and temporal world, while, on the spiritual side, it was triumph and glory and the entrance to the life more abundant. The man might be massacred,—the idea for which he stood cannot die. It rises from the apparent death and is resurrected in the form of new and nobler and more widely pervading ideals which communicate their inspiration to all humanity.
In the cemetery of Greeley lie buried the body of Mr. Meeker and of his daughter Josephine, whose early death followed close upon the tragedy. The aged widow, now in her eighty-ninth year, still survives, occupying her home in this Colorado town. Mrs. Meeker retains all her clearness of intellect; all her keen interest in the affairs of the day. She reads her daily newspapers, writes letters that are models of beautiful thought and exquisite feeling, and still continues to write the verse which through life has been the natural expression of her poetic nature. Mrs. Meeker writes verses as a bird sings—with a natural gift full of spontaneous music.
The work of Nathan Cook Meeker in all that makes for industrial and social progress and moral ideals contributed incalculable aid to Colorado. All over the state the tourist is asked, "Have you seen Greeley? That is our ideal town."
During all the years of Mr. Meeker's residence in Colorado he remained a staff correspondent of the "Tribune." Horace Greeley went to the West and visited the Colony; and in the fine high school building of Greeley to-day, there hang, side by side, the portraits of Horace Greeley and Nathan Cook Meeker.
In this world in which we live events are not finished when they have receded into the past. They persist in the texture of life. They stand for certain fulfilments, and, like Banquo's ghost, they will "not down" until their complete significance is worked out to its final conclusion.
"Say not the struggle naught availeth."
It always avails. It matters little as to amassing of possessions; but it matters greatly as to the purity of a man's motives and the degree to which he keeps faith with his ideals. Unfalteringly, even unto death, did Nathan Cook Meeker keep faith with those ideals that revealed themselves to him.
A noble work like that of Mr. Meeker is like the seed sown which is not quickened except it die. Sown in weakness, it is raised in power; sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. The three years of the ministry of Jesus on earth ended in defeat, disaster, and death. Was his life thereby a failure? Who has won the triumph's evidence—Pilate or Christ? Lincoln had to die that the nation might live. Heroism is forever being crowned with martyrdom.
All life is better to-day for every noble individual life that has been lived in the world. Nathan Cook Meeker was one who literally gave his life to lofty ideals, and this hero whom the Silver State holds in honor and reverence merits the recognition of the nation.