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UT IN the continent of Australia, near
the source of the river Murray, rises a
blue mountain to imperial heights, over
looking crag and cliff and hill, valley and
plain and river. The mountain looms
some 7,176 feet into the azure sky, and
was in the days of Henry Grady, the
highest discovered peak in the Austra
lian Alps.
O
Its name is KOSCIUSZKO.
And it is said to overlook some of the wildest
and most beautiful scenery in the Australian con
tinent.
The blue mountain received its name from a mound
near Cracrow, which contains earth brought from all
the battlefields of Poland. The mound is only 150
feet high, yet, in its way, it is as important as the
mountain.
The tumulus was raised in honor of Kosciuszko.
Patriotic earth incarnadined with the blood of ten
thousand Polish heroes!
So the personality of one man has caused a heroic
mound to be raised in his honor, and a mighty
mountain bears his name aloft to the Australian
skies, and that should be enough for one of the heroes
of Valhalla, but still mound and mountain is not
a monument. Therefore, in the City of Washington,
the capital of the well advertised part of the earth,
a monument of bronze and marble has been raised,
in Lafayette Square, to further honor the memory
of Kosciuszko.
Os the three symbols of honor I would prefer the
mountain. And why? Perhaps, when mound and
monument, the work of the pigmy man, have gone
back to original clay, the mountain, the work of the
Almighty, may stand, lifting its blue shield heaven
ward, to tell the story of Kosciuszko.
It is a dramatic story. Secretary of War Dickin
son, who delivered the oration before the monument
of Kosciuszko, is now in the Chinese Empire, and
he has, no doubt, by this time, after the manner
of the great and busy, forgotten what he said.
As I said, it is a dramatic story.
Kosciuszko left Poland because he was disappoint
ed in love. The daughter of the Marshal of Lithunia,
who did not requite, return, or reciprocate his love,
helped the cause of American liberty, and, indirectly,
was the far-off divine SHE who made possible mound
Kosciuszko, Mount Kosciuszko, and monument Kos
ciuszko-
Kosciuszko was a skilled engineer, a learned grad
uate of the military schools of Warsaw and Versailles.
He attended Versailles at the expense of the state,
and his service to the American cause, as officer of
engineers, was, to say the least, scientific.
As a case in point, the bulwarks of Bemis Heights
was planned by him, and General Gates laughed at
the efforts of Burgoyne to dislodge the American
forces. From the trenches of Kosciuszko, Arnold,
the soul of chivalry at that time, rode on his match
less black charger to meet Burgoyne, and lose that
famous leg in defense of American liberty. By some
strange evolution of Fate, Kosciuszko designed the
works at West Point, which Arnold, the soul of
treachery at that time, tried to betray. We may,
therefore, epitomize the war record of Kosciuszko.
in the North, in a sentence:
He designed the forts where Arnold triumphed—
and where Arnold fell.
Also, he received the public thanks of Congress,
and the esteem and commendation of Benjamin
Franklin, which was a very great honor, indeed, as
Franklin was one of the very few wise men who
ever lived on the earth according to inles.
Kosciuszko served the American army as Colonel
of Engineers, as Brigadier General, and as Adjutant
under Washington. He received the badge of the
Cincinnati.
In the South, Kosciuszko served under General
Green. For sheer human interest, the campaigns
of Green are far more thrilling than those of Wash
ington. Without food and without clothes, they
marched through the Carolina forests to free the
South from Tarleton and Cornwallis. And with these
KOSCIUSZKO AND PULASKI
Sy Lamar Strickland Payne, Author of "Twentieth Century Fables,” "An Hour With John Friendly," Etc.
Joint Author of "The Hission Girl, n "The Limit of the Line,” "The Lady From Alabama,” Etc'
The Golden Age for October 6, 1910.
naked, starving patriots, marched Kosciuszko, the
Pole.
As Mr. Secretary of War Dickinson said, at the
unveiling of the Kosciuszko monument: “By his con
spicuous bravery at Saratoga and Yellow Springs,
he established between himself and his soldiers that
sympathy which comrades in arms always cherish
for those who have with honor stood together upon
the fiery crest of battle.” The badge of the Cincin
nati may have sparkled with a diamond-like lustre
on the breast of Kosciuszko, but in his heart there
burned, with more brilliant flame, the badge of com
radeship. Happy that type of foreign officer, such
as Kosciuszko, who could win the thanks of Con
gress, the praise of Franklin, the approval of Wash
ington, and, above all, the esteem and respect of the
men with him upon the firing line.
With the experience garnered on the American
fields of battle, Kosciuszko returned to Poland. Per
haps, the stern war-god Mars had mitigated—if not
cured —the pangs inflicted by the daughter of the
Lithurnian Marshal.
After some years of retirement, on the reorgani
zation of the Polish army, he was made a Major
General under Prince Poinatowski. He fought val
iantly in defence of the Constitution at the battles
of Zielence and Dubienka. At the latter, with 4,000
of his Spartan-like countrymen, he was enabled to
check the advance of 15,000 Russians. He had well
learned the courage of Leonidas, under the tutelage
of Washington and of Green.
The next event in his remarkable career was the
receiving of the citizenship of France, after his re
tirement to Leipsic, on the second partition of the
Polish Empire. He had resigned his commission as
Major General, on the agreement of King Stanilas
to this division.
Two years later, however, on the uprising of the
unconquerable Poles, he was made Dictator and Gen
eral-in-Chief, and appeared suddenly before Cracrow,
with a regiment armed mostly with scythes. But he
moved boldly on the enemy. And Russia felt the
fighting edge of those same scythes at Ralawice. With
a corps of 5,000 men he obtained a decisive victory
over 10,000 Russians, and returned, scythes and all,
to Cracrow.
His position as Dictator, with remarkable sagacity,
he turned over to a national council, and once more
took the field. His army had been increased to 13,000
by the addition of former Polish regiments, and he
found his march opposed by 40,000 Prussians, under
their King. He endured the fortunes of war, and was
defeated by superior numbers at Szczekociny, (a name
calculated to confuse the ablest General).
Kosciuszko retired to Warsaw. He defended the
city with the skill taught by the military schools of
Warsaw and Versailles, and that hard experience won
at Bemis Heights, Saratoga, and Yellow Springs, in
his defence he was successful. And the beleaguering
Prussians and Russians raised the siege. The skilled
engineer had once more obtained the victory.
Reorganizing his army he sought the Russians and
found them in superior numbers at Maciejowice
They were commanded by two famous generals,
Suvaroff and Fersen. On October 10, 1794, a battle
was fought, and Kosciuszko fell from his horse, cov
ered with wounds. He was made a prisoner of war
and conveyed by his captors to St. Petersburg. Dur
ing the two years of Catherine’s reign, after his im
prisonment, he was kept under strict watch. On the
death of Queen Catherine, the Emperor Paul released
him with many marks of personal regard, a pension
and the offer of his own sword.
“Sire,” said Kosciuszko, “I have no need of a sword.
I have no country to defend.” When he was across
the Russian borders, he returned to the Czar all the
marks of esteem that had been given to him. (Oh!
stern and unyielding patriot!) He was true and
loyal to his beloved Poland.
In 1797 he revisited the country which had given
to him his military spurs. Congress granted to him
a pension and a tract of land. Kosciuszko was the
type of he"o that friends and foes delighted to honor,
a man cast in iron mould against whose lofty crest
the dread lightnings of the gods flashed in vain. He
was received in the country, whose freedom he had
helped so skilfully to win, with great honor and
distinction.
After his visit to the United Statess he went into
retirement on a place near Fontainebleau. And
there Napoleon, the mighty master of men, desired hi s
help when he was about to invade Poland. But Kos
ciuszko was on parole by Russia, and he refused to
aid the Man of Destiny.
When the allied armies marched on Paris, in 1814,
the Polish regiments committed depredations that
roused the ire of the veteran Kosciuszko. He vigor
ously reprimanded the officers, and when they as
heatedly desired to know who it was that thus re
proved them, he answered, with great dignity—
“l am Kosciuszko!”
The mention of his name was like an electric
shock. The regiments threw down their arms and
prostrated themselves at his feet. He towered above
them, like some Thor or Odin, master of the late
rebellious field.
After the congress at Vienna and the battle of
Waterloo, Kosciuszko was in a mysterious way neg
lected. The Emperor Alexander had made to him the
most encouraging promises, in private audience, but
Kosciuszko was allowed to retire to Sohithurn, in
Switzerland. From there the serfs on his Polish
estates received a deed of manumission.
As he had lived dramatically, so he must die, not
on the fiery crest of battle before the shotted canon’s
death-rimmed mouth, but still in a startling way. His
horse hurled himself and his gallant rider over an
Alpine precipice.
The Emperor Alexander removed his body to Cra
crow, where he sleeps beside Prince Poinatowski and
Sobeski.
The period of his life was from 1746-1817. He
was as gallant a soldier of fortune as ever drew
saber in defence of the American flag. Perhaps, the
chiefest tribute that can be paid to his memory was
that he was too interpid a soul to become the tool
of Napoleon. Napoleon served Napoleon. Kosciuszko
served liberty.
(To be continued.)
WHEN THE IDOL REPENTED.
Here is another one of the pathetic stories of
Chinese faith —pathetic because that faith is so ear
nest and yet so far from the truth. The story, quoted
from an exchange, has its funny side, too:
A poor man in China went to pray to an idol that
had been placed outside the temple. It is not known
what he asked for, but he promised that if his idol
would answer him he would give him his cow. The
man’s prayer was answered, but he repented of his
bargain, and as he did not wish to part with his cow
he went to the idol again to be released from his
promise. He said: “I know I promised to give you
my cow, but I am very poor. I have only one cow;
if I give it to you, how shall I get my fields plowed?”
and so on, asking to be allowed to keep his cow. The
idol would not let him off, but said the cow must
be kept.
At last the man could do nothing else but tether
the cow to the idol’s chair and go sorrowfully home,
wondering how he was to get on without her.
He sat down in his room to think over his troubles,
and—lo! —he had not sat long before he heard a
great shouting. He went to the door to see, and
there was his cow coming along the road as fast as
it could, dragging the idol after it. How the people
laughed, and how glad the poor man was! It never
o rurred to him that the cow had brought the idol.
No, indeed! He thought it was the idol that had
repented of his hardness of heart and had brought
his cow back again.—Selected.
AN OPPORTUNITY
The latest published copy of Rev.
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