The Champlain tercentenary

by New York . Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission; Henry Wayland Hill

Labor!—There is the true basis of American civilization, as founded by those pioneers who understood, such was their common sense, the great things that could be done in the land where they had come to stay.—Labor, the Father of Liberty, the Father of Independence, the Father of Equality and of Justice; in a word the only solid basis of Society.

This, then, is the characteristic—henceforth unchangeable—of your American civilization. Everybody works, and there is work for every one and for all, but there is no room for the idle. The ceaseless activity of your lives shows it. The physical and mental strain to which the richest as well as the poorest of your citizens voluntarily subject themselves proves it. A glance at your way of living shows that you have remained faithful to the principle of your founders. The intense activity we have witnessed during our short trip through your country, and which we find at its highest pitch in this Empire City of New York, what is it but a complete devotion to the duty imposed upon man by the opening words of the Book of Books: “Thou shalt earn thy bread by the sweat of thy brow.” Hence your incomparable greatness.

Blessed be Labor, gentlemen. Go on setting the example of labor to the world. It is not Gold that counts; it is the constant and never ceasing employment of all the faculties of Man. You have already accomplished a prodigious work,—your future achievements will be even more extraordinary. No one can say what the future of this continent will be when the Isthmus of Panama is cut in twain, when the waters of the two oceans shall be joined and the coasts of the two Americas brought together as the leaves of a closing book. It is a new source of wealth, it is a new field of activity and a still wider field of authority and responsibility. Between Asia and Europe your Republic certainly stands as the dividing line of the world. You are at the fulcrum of the scale. The balance of the world’s power will in future rest with you.

But now, at this very time, other problems confront you, and, first of all, let us face it frankly, the problem of the government of the great democracies by themselves.

All this stirs you, occupies your thoughts, and arouses your passions. All this moves, deeply, those who come to visit you. To use the words of the poet of old. They see clearly that in you is being born something greater than an Iliad: “Aliquod majus nascitur Iliade.”

In these troublous times, gentlemen, remain true to the law of labor, to the law of those who first planned and laid out your future life. Look back upon those pioneers who, face to face with the early difficulties, foreseeing the growth that was to come and how complex it was to be, bequeathed to you, in order that you might carry out the work, a single and a simple law: the law of labor.

Your commemoration of Champlain, to take our modest part in which we have crossed the ocean, proves how faithful and devoted you are to the memory of the founders.

Courage, Labor, Justice, Faith in the Ideal, such the reasons for these useful lives. We are proud that among them one of the most glorious was that of our fellow-countryman—Champlain. We thank you for cherishing his memory.

And it is to show that France herself joins in these sentiments that we are come here, in such numbers, to bring you for the Champlain monument, erected by the States of New York and Vermont, a bust born of the genius of our illustrious fellow-countryman Rodin, an image of that which we hold most dear: France.

In the mighty structure of American civilization there is something of France—allow us to believe gentlemen that you will not forget it—and on the monument you are erecting this image will remain forever sealed to recall and symbolize that fact. This image we give to you as Champlain, our fellow-countryman, gave the best of his life to this land of yours. We give it to the United States, we give it to the States of New York and Vermont, the builders of the lighthouse rising upon the shores of the lake which bears Champlain’s name; we give it to these Commissions which have so graciously invited us here; we give it to all the friends of France in America.