This stone will speak more effectively than my strange vocabulary, the welcome I would give this most distinguished company from France to-day. Here is a bit of France, still unnaturalized, that will vibrate in all its particles with joy when it hears the voices that speak the most beautiful language on earth. (I have only a fear that it will disintegrate in its happiness.)
What I would have this stone say will have eloquent supplement in what will be said by those who represent the Nation, the States of New York and Vermont and the city of New York. These, gentlemen of France, it is my honor to present to you.
Those explorers, priests and coureurs des bois whom Champlain started out into the West gave to the world for all time (and to a new nation for some time at least) that most wonderful of all the valleys in the world, the Mississippi Valley. And it is a noteworthy fact that the three heads of the co-ordinate branches of our government come from that valley and from the banks of the rivers discovered by the French. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court comes from the River, which Sieur de La Salle with Tonty traced to the Gulf of Mexico. The Speaker of the House of Representatives comes from the banks of that tumultuous and shifting flood known as the Missouri, which Joliet and Marquette saw hurling great trees into the Mississippi. And the President of the United States comes from the banks of a river of that same valley, also discovered, in all probability, by the French,—the river along which they planted their plates of discovery, the river which they called La Belle Rivière. I propose the health of the geographical son of France, the President of the United States, who is represented here to-night by a member of his Cabinet, Attorney-General Wickersham. (Applause.)
As Dr. Finley poured a few drops of champagne over the stone the banqueters went to their feet and cheered enthusiastically. President Finley then presented Attorney-General Wickersham, delegated to represent the President, who spoke as follows:
Address of Attorney-General George W. Wickersham
Mr. Toastmaster, Mr. Ambassador, Members of the French Delegation, Ladies and Gentlemen.—In July, 1909, representatives of France, Canada and the United States, and of the several states bordering on Lake Champlain, united in celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of the discovery of that lake by the great pioneer, whose name it bears. That discovery itself was but the occasion for a savage combat between the Indians, whom Champlain accompanied and the ferocious Iroquois whom they encountered. Only one ray of light struggles through the miserable tale of barbaric celebration of the victory which the French firearms enabled the Hurons to win over their enemies. That ray was the half successful effort made by Champlain to check the infliction by his Indian companions of the usual fiendish tortures upon their prisoners.
Je leur remonstrois que nous n’usions point de ces cruautez, wrote Champlain in the account of his Journeys (Voyages), et que nous les faisions mourir tout d’un coup, et que s’ils vouloyent que je luy donnasse un coup d’arquebuse, j’en serois content. Ils dirent que non, et qu’il ne sentiroit point de mal. Je m’en allay d’avec eux comme fasché de voir tant de cruautez qu’ils exercoient sur ce corps. Comme ils virent que je n’en estois contant, ils m’appelerent et me dirent que je luy donnasse un coup d’arquebuse: ce que je fis, sans qu’il en vist rien; et luy fis passer tous les tourmens qu’il devoit souffrir, d’un coup, plustost que de la voir tyranniser. (Voyages, Oeuvres de Champlain, III, pp. 197-8. Quebec, 1870.)
(I objected that we did not practice these cruelties, and that we killed our enemies with one blow; that I would be content if they would let me shoot him with my arquebuse. They said no; that he felt no pain. I turned away from them as though angered at such cruelty as they were inflicting upon the wretch. Seeing that I was vexed, they called me back and said I could shoot him with my arquebuse, which I did, without his knowing anything, thus ending the agony which he was suffering at one shot, rather than to see him further tormented.)
In all the history of this man we find him the same—brave, simple, humane, unselfish; the embodiment of patriotism and piety—an example of the finest manly qualities.
It was, therefore, fitting that in perpetual memory of Samuel Champlain there should be erected at the scene of the combat that signalized the discovery of this lake—that same Crown Point that a century and a quarter later was one of the first places to fall before the arms of American colonials in the War of Independence—a lighthouse, whose beams shining through the darkness of the night, even as the compassion of the good Champlain lightened the path of Stygian horrors to the poor suffering savage whose miseries he ended, may warn and guide the mariners on those dangerous waters, through dark and stormy nights, to the safe haven where they would be.