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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.) 5