This is a fitting monument to the man whose memory we honor—to one, who broadening with the years, outgrew the cruel creeds, the heartless dogmas of his time—to one who passed from superstition to science—from religion to reason—from theology to humanity—from slavery to freedom—from the shadow of fear to the blessed light of love and courage. To one who believed in intellectual hospitality—in the perfect freedom of the soul, and hated tyranny, in every form, with all his heart.
To one whose head and hands were in partnership constituting the firm of Intelligence and Industry, and whose heart divided the profits with his fellow-men. To one who fought the battle of life alone, without the aid of place or wealth, and yet grew nobler and gentler with success.
To one who tried to make a heaven here and who believed in the blessed gospel of cheerfulness and love—of happiness and hope.
And it is fitting, too, that this monument should be adorned with the sublime faces, wrought in stone, of the immortal dead—of those who battled for the rights of man—who broke the fetters of the slave—of those who filled the minds of men with poetry, art, and light—of Voltaire, who abolished torture in France and who did more for liberty than any other of the sons of men—of Thomas Paine, whose pen did as much as any sword to make the New World free—of Victor Hugo, who wept for those who weep—of Emerson, a worshiper of the Ideal, who filled the mind with suggestions of the perfect—of Goethe, the poet-philosopher—of Whitman, the ample, wide as the sky—author of the tenderest, the most pathetic, the sublimest poem that this continent has produced—of Shakespeare, the King of all—of Beethoven, the divine,—of Chopin and Verdi and of Wagner, grandest of them all, whose music satisfies the heart and brain and fills imagination's sky—of George Eliot, who wove within her brain the purple robe her genius wears—of George Sand, subtle and sincere, passionate and free—and with these—faces of those who, on the stage, have made the mimic world as real as life and death.
Beneath the loftiest monuments may be found ambition's worthless dust, while those who lived the loftiest lives are sleeping now in unknown graves.
It may be that the bravest of the brave who ever fell upon the field of ruthless war, was left without a grave to mingle slowly with the land he saved.
But here and now the Man and Monument agree, and blend like sounds that meet and melt in melody—a monument for the dead—a blessing for the living—a memory of tears—a prophecy of joy.
Fortunate the people where this good man lived, for they are all his heirs—and fortunate for me that I have had the privilege of laying this little laurel leaf upon his unstained brow.
And now, speaking for those he loved—for those who represent the honored dead—I dedicate this home of mirth and song—of poetry and art—to the memory of Philo D. Beckwith—a true philosopher—a real philanthropist.