PEW'S ORATION.

Facing the statue of Shakespeare in Central Park, New York, is that
of Christopher Columbus. It was unveiled with appropriate ceremonies.
General James Grant Wilson presided; Mrs. Julia Ward Howe read her
beautiful poem, "The Mariner's Dream," and the oration was delivered
by the Hon. Chauncey Depew. Upon this occasion I spoke as follows:

"This hour will live in history. Central Park, beautiful and
magnificent, is the fitting place for the statue of Columbus.
It is well that to the City of New York, the metropolis of the
continent, should have fallen the grateful task of portraying to
the millions of all the coming ages the features of the man who,
despite obstacles and dangers, marked out the pathway to the New
World.

"The name and fame of Columbus belong exclusively to no age or
country. They are the enduring heritage of all people. Your
President has truly said: 'In all the transactions of history,
there is no act which, for vastness and performance, can be compared
to the discovery of the continent of America.' In the modest words
of the great navigator, he 'only opened the gates'; and lo! there came
in the builders of a new and mighty nation.

"It is said that in Venice there is sacredly preserved a letter
written by Columbus a few hours before he sailed from Palos. With
reverent expression of trust in God, humbly, but with unfaltering faith,
he spoke of his proposed voyage to that famous land. He builded
better than he knew. His dream, while a suppliant in the outer
chambers of kings, and while keeping lonely vigil on the deep, was
the discovery of a new pathway to the Indies. Yet who can doubt
that to his prophetic soul was then foreshadowed something of that
famous land with the warp and woof of whose history, tradition,
and song, his name and fame are linked for all time? Was it Mr.
Winthrop who said of Columbus and his compeers: 'They were the
pioneers in the march to independence; the precursors in the
only progress of freedom which was to have no backward steps.'

"Is it too much to say of this man that among the world's benefactors
a greater than he hath not appeared? What page in our history
tells of deeds so fraught with blessings to the generations of men
as the discovery of America? Columbus added a continent to the
map of the world.

"I will detain you no longer. Your eyes will now behold this
splendid work of art. It is well that its approaches are firm and