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Luke Lee’s Eloquent Tribute To Carmack.
BRILLIANT YOUNG TENNESSEE SENATO RIS ORATOR OF THE DAY WHEN COLUM BIA, HOME OF THE DEAD HERO, GATH
ERS IN HER ANNUAL TRIBUTE OF FLOWERS AND TEARS.
HAT is a beautiful custom which Co
lumbia, Tennessee has —and productive
of worthiest patriotism—when her peo-
T
pie gather in November every year to
pay the tribute of sacred eloquence, flowers
and tears, to the memory of her most honored
and eloquent son, the martyred apostle of
temperance, Edward W. Carmack.
The meeting this year was held last Sunday
in the First Methodist church in Columbia and
the orator of the day was Senator Luke Lea,
that knightly, intrepid spirit whose bravery
and ability caused him to be the man of the
hour after the heroic Carmack fell.
Finney’s Eloquent Introduction.
In presenting Senator Lea, Hon. J. I. Fin
ney made such a magnificent speech that we
give it in full:
Introducing Senator Lea, Mr. Finney said:
“When on that bleak November day, five years
ago, our knightly leader, statesman, citizen and mar
tyr, whom we have assembled here to honor, was
laid low, the forces of vice and crime rejoiced; they
•failed to reckon the influence that Carmack dead
would wield in fair Tennessee. Although his spirit
had been summoned to meet his Maker, his ghost
has walked in Tennessee, and during these five years
we have witnessed the triumph of every reform for
which he waged his last great battle, and for which
he finally yielded up his life’s blood as a sacrifice.
Out of the gloom of that tragic event Tennessee has
emerged a cleaner and a better place in which to
live and in which to rear our children and our chil
dren’s children.
“But there was a time, during the first shock of
that awful crime when stout hears quailed, when
strong men were overcome, when our forces were
disorganized and disheartened, and the outlook was
full of gloom. It was then that a young man of cour
age, of ability and of heroic devotion to duty, a fol
lower of the illustrious Carmack in his last and no
blest battle for home and civic righteousness, came
to the front and rallied the broken hosts and bade
them be of good cheer. And with his great paper he
renewed the battle that has finally been fought to a
successful conclusion, vindicated the name and hon
ored the memory of Edward Ward Carmack and re
deemed Tennessee. For two long and dreary years,
almost alone and unaided, this man’s paper fought
the fight that Carmack had begun. The issue was
often doubted, the enemy was defiant, strong and
well entrenched, but Luke Lea was always in the
thickest of the fight. The day was never too stormy
nor the night too long nor dark that he did not issue
a stirring appeal ,to the veteran soldiers of the de
parted hero to stand steady and final victory would
be theirs.
W. C. T. U. Members.
“The members of the Woman’s Christian Temper
ance’ Union, that valiant and heroic band of devoted
and saintly women who have for so long and so ear
nestly engaged in unequal contest the organized
forces of vice and crime and corruption, are to be
congratulated upon the appropriateness of their se
lection of a speaker for this solemn occasion. For
who, in all Tennessee, is more worthy to stand at
the grave of Carmack and pay tribute to his services
to his state than Luke Lea? It was Luke Lea’s news
paper, the only one at the capital of the state, that
properly characterized the taking off of this great
man in whose name we assemble today. It was Luke
Lea’s newspaper paper that almost alone for two
long years waged relentless warfare upon the men
and the interests that accomplished the death of
Carmack. And when the first appeal was made to
the people of Tennessee upon that issue, so well and
so ably had Lea’s work been done that by more than
50,000 majority they thundered their condemnation
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR WEEK OF NOV. 13
of the crime that robbed them of the matchless ser
vices of their dead leader.
“We all remember how, in the memorable legisla
tive session following the death of our leader, Luke
Lea rallied the broken and shattered forces of good
government and assisted in effecting an organization
that gave to this state the prohibition laws which
will ever remain the most enduring and noblest trib
ute of a grateful people to the memory of Edward
Ward Carmack. And in all the contests that have
been fought since that time Luke Lea has been in
the thickest of the fray. In two desperate encoun
ters and at the cost of much time in effort and mon
ey, he has driven the organ of the lawless liquor pow
er from the newspaper field in the capital of this
state. There have been many noble and heroic sol
diers in this long and desperate struggle for better
things in Tennessee, but no one has made more sac
rifices, fought more heroically, or with grimmer de
termination than Senator Luke Lea, whom it is my
pleasure to present to you today.”
Senator Lea’s Speech.
At the conclusion of Mr. Finney’s introduction,
Senator Lea spoke as follows:
“My friends, we are assembled today not to unveil
a monument of granite and bronze erected to the
memory of Carmack, as is his due, but to dedicate
a monument erected by himself in the hearts of the
people of his beloved state; more enduring than of
granite and bronze. We gather to pay tribute to a
leader great in life and dominant in death; to ac
knowledge the immortality of character.
“In Tennessee we recall with fondness his magne
tism, his lovable personality that drew and held us
to him, and with pride his bravery while living, his
courage to die, his matchless oratory, and his gifted
pen, the delight of friend and the terror of foe, wel
comed by the unafraid and dreaded by the powers
that prey.
“In Washington we are thrilled with a sense of ex
quisite pleasure and personal pride when we hear
men of national renown, statesmen who have im
pressed their views upon our country’s course, mak
ing and directing its policies and converting them
into laws, speak in affection, in admiration, in rev
erence, in respect, of Carmack’s great qualities of
head and heart. There he was marked as a states
man of great parts, whose achievements, if length of
service in the senate had been vouchsafed, would
have handed down to posterity the name of Carmack
with those of Webster, Calhoun and Clay. Carmack
was a statesman, for a statesman is a man with a .
vision—a man who can in the mirror of today see
-the events of tomorrow—a lawgiver who can so con
ceive the laws that meeting the present conditions,
they yet may make conditions that will be better in
future and apply with equal force and aptness to
those changed conditions.
Framers of Constitution.
“The framers of our constitution were statesmen,
for which prophetic vision they wrote an instrument
tinged with immortality, suited to the condition of
the confederated colonies, separated and isolated by
the tediousness of the stage coach and the post and
now equally applicable to the forty-eight states of a
centralized federal union, brought into closest con
tact each with the other by the railroad, the tele
phone and the telegraph.
“Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln were statesmen in
that they so shaped legislation and molded public
thought as to destroy abuses strongly entrenched in
power and in destroying one specie of property to
substitute another in its stead, that brought unher
alded prosperity instead of expected ruin.
“Carmack was a statesman of this great school.
He had the brain, the genius, the fidelity to princi
ple, the character equal to the peer of them. He
lacked alone their full opportunity.
“We knew, we loved, we mourn, Carmack—the
loving father, the devoted husband, the loyal friend
—Carmack the gifted editor, the brilliant orator, the
polished statesman, the upright citizen; but we must
also know and remember Carmack —the martyr.
“Carmack could be alive today, strong in the full
vigor of his splendid physique, facing the noon hour
of his life, laden wth honors, surrounded by friends,
luxurious in riches or seated with the mighty in the
government of our country, according to the bent of
his inclination, had he been content merely to live
and to let thrive and prosper those who reward pub
lic officials powerful enough to be dangerous if they
be wise enough to be dumb.
“Carmack did not embrace the cause of prohibi
tion because he was defeated or disgraced, and could
no longer win the favor of the saloons as fickle in
politics as any painted courtesan in love, but a sena
tor of the United States at the height pf his power,
at the zenith of his popularity, he challenged the
political despotism of the saloon because he despised
its support—no matter how effective and preferred
its destruction as a political factor in Tennessee to
a seat in the senate at the price of silence.
“Carmack declared war upon the saloon because
he knew that it was all evil and fed alone upon mis
ery and want and ruin.
Followers Were Raw Recruits.
“Carmack met the forces of evil not when they
were scattered and routed, in full flight to escape the
deadly charge of citizens of every party and creed
fighting under one banner, in vain effort to shun the
ambush of their own Hessians joining the enemy
they could not destroy. Carmack challenged the
power of the saloon when its armies numbered un
told legions, when its coffers were brimming over
with gold, wrung from the wrecks of homes and hu
manity, when every brewery and every distillery
was a commissary well stocked; and when his own
followers were raw recruits, undisciplined, unarmed
and without the sinews of war.
“Only a man with Carmack’s clear vision could
have foreseen the future and the end.
“He knew full well that in the first battles the
recruit must yield the field to the veteran; that the
enthusiasm for a cause that makes men willing to
live, but ready to die, must be fanned into a flame
before principle could successfully conttend against
corruption.
“He knew his political future depended not upon
the outcome of the war, but upon the results of the
first battles, that defeat in the beginning meant his
retirement not from public life, but from office and
opportunity, and would impose a leadership burden
some and without reward. It was a leadership in
the nation’s forum where a whisper travels with the
wings of the wind from coast to coast that was to
give way to the leadership of a forlorn hope. He
knew he would be misunderstood and maligned, his
life threatened and perhaps taken, but never falter
ing, undaunted and unafraid, he dedicated his ambi
tion, his ease, his contentment, his life itself, to
the cause of Him who had brought him peace and
a perfect understanding. Buckling on his armor he
went forth to battle —counting not the cost —to fight
to make men free and to perpetuate free govern
ment, for he knew full well that men could not be
free and government was not free so long as gov
ernment itself was in partnership with the saloon,
licensing a merciless master to be cruel to its slaves
and to be unrelenting to the innocent victims of the
homes it wrecked.
“And so Carmack enlisted for the war. He gave
up office and opportunity as the result of the first
battle. He forsook a life of wealth and ease when
he marched upon the field for the second contest,
knowing full well the odds against him, and not un
mindful of the full measure of the consequences, and
then he surrendered his life that principle might
live, that men might be stronger and women hap
pier.
Carmack’s Last Charge.
“Five years, each full to overflowing with new
events, have passed since Carmack alone led the last
(Continued on page 6.)
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