the United States bordering on the Great Lakes might very possibly be recovered by Great Britain and form a part of Canada. We were being defeated on land, our soldiers were not meeting with success, the British controlled the great waterway of the Great Lakes, and Cleveland and every other city that bordered on the Great Lakes was in danger of invasion and destruction. During the summer of 1813 that intrepid, courageous American naval officer, Oliver Hazard Perry, was working quietly with a crew of devoted men constructing a crude fleet, and gathering the necessary artillery, cannon, powder and ball, in order to meet the British fleet on Lake Erie and try to break the British control of the waterways and, on September 10th, 1813, Oliver Hazard Perry who, until then, was an apparently unknown man, with his gallant soldiers won one of those astounding victories which have made the history of American naval warfare one of the most glorious in the history of the world. Her brave sailors, with their crude material and their roughly built ships, succeeded in destroying, or capturing, the entire British fleet and forever removed any danger that this part of America might cease to be a part of the land of the free and the brave.

We are here today honoring Oliver Hazard Perry. We should be grateful to his memory. We haven't, I am afraid, however, kept his memory green as we should. Back in 1860 a monument to Oliver Hazard Perry was erected here in the very center of the Public Square where Ontario Street and Superior Street cross. I can remember as a little boy, having been born within a stone's throw of the spot, I can remember the old statue where it was removed from the center of the Square over to the spot where now stands the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, and I can recall vividly how that statue, with the gallant figure of Perry and the gallant figures of the two little midshipmen standing on either hand, inspired in my boyish mind a reverence for Oliver Hazard Perry, and a feeling of love and gratitude for him for all he had done for us. Then in later years the statue was removed to Wade Park, and then finally to Gordon Park, where Oliver Hazard Perry's statue looks out across Lake Erie facing the scene where he made his name immortal and yet, my friends, despite the debt of gratitude we owe Oliver Hazard Perry, his statue has been allowed to fall into decay and, today, through the work of the elements,

through the work of vandals who are never content to leave a thing of beauty without marring it, we find the statue in such condition that unless it be restored it will, in a very short time, become an eyesore and will have to be removed from the public view.

Now, one of the things that the Early Settlers' Association. has committed themselves to is the restoration of that monument, the preservation of the original monument, so that your children and mine, and our grandchildren, may continue to have a feeling and sentiment of gratitude and of love for this great naval hero. We are endeavoring to raise the sum of ten thousand dollars for the purpose of restoring that monument. We have received two thousand dollars for that purpose. There remains eight thousand dollars to be raised, and if anyone among you, or among your friends, desires to make a contribution, however large or however small, it should be sent to Mr. T. J. McManus, the treasurer of the Early Settlers' Association, at Room 304, the Erie Building, and Mr. McManus will acknowledge your gift, and your name, too, will be permanently preserved in the archives of the Early Settlers' Association as one who loves and is grateful to the name and memory of Oliver Hazard Perry. What more can I say? Here we are today in the year 1927 on the site where a little group of devoted people landed in 1796, and who, through the passing of the years increased through their progeny to the number of a million souls; Cleveland, as we know it, has ceased to be a rural community and today is the fifth city of the United States, where her wealth is immeasurable, whose future none can predict. We stand today facing a memorial of the past in the person of General Moses Cleaveland, while at our back we stand in the shadow of this vast Union Terminals Station, which is a foreshadowing of the vaster things that are to come. My friends, the greatness of the Western Reserve, the greatness of Cleveland, is not to be measured in her public buildings, in her great industries, in her incredible wealth, but rather in the glory of the Western Reserve, and in the fact that this spot in America through the long years of American history has ever been a welcome harboring home of liberty loving people.

During the Civil War, Cleveland was the great terminal of the underground railway which assisted the slaves in the

south in their flight to freedom in Canada and, since the Civil War, Cleveland has always been a great laboratory city, a city that I am happy to think of as one of the great free cities of the world, and it is the place above all other places in America where the working out of the problems of social and economical problems are most to be expected. It was said of old that to be a Roman was to be greater than to be a king; it was said that to be a son of Athens was to be a son of no mean city. There always have been reasons for citizens of great cities to be proud and we, of all modern American cities, can hold up our heads and our hearts, rejoice and be glad because we are the inheritors of a century or more of great industry, of freedom loving people, and ours is the task to keep the glories of the past in reverent memory, and keep Cleveland a wonderful place for our children and our grandchildren to be born in and come up in.

Now, don't forget, my friends, if you want to help in the matter of the Perry Monument restoration send your contribution to Room 304 Erie Building in care of Mr. T. J. McManus, the Treasurer of the Early Settlers' Association. I thank you. (Applause.)

President Stewart: Judge Hull, I thank you for your address to this large number of people here. I have the pleasure this morning of introducing Mr. John P. Green, born and bred in the south and who has been here for many years, and who will favor us with a few remarks.

Mr. John P. Green: I am not invited to be here this morning, but, nevertheless, I am very glad to have an opportunity to speak to you a few minutes.

When that flag was raised a year ago the mast was the highest thing around here but now I say, with my good German friend, "How high is dat?" (indicating). That is the highest thing, I take it, this side of New York City and as the flag pole has risen, and as this tower has risen, so has the City of Cleveland risen.

My mother brought me here when I was between twelve and thirteen years of age, seventy years ago on the 7th day of July last. I have seen Cleveland grow from thirty-six thousand to a million and ten thousand and, if you count that which belongs to us, the suburban towns that get their water from

us, and get their electricity from us, and get their goods from us, we have a million two hundred and fifty thousand souls. Common sense tells us all of which I see, and part of which I hear.

Now the first thing that attracted my attention to this old Public Square in 1857, when it had a fence around it, was the Wellington rescuers. A slave ran away from the south, and he got over here and, under the Virginia law, which gave the Government the right to pursue a slave and carry him back into slavery, a man came up and took that slave, and he got him back as far as Oberlin, Ohio, eight miles distant from Wellington, and the people there protested, merchants, and the doctors, and lawyers, all were in a menacing crowd, and they rescued that man, and they turned him loose and gave him his liberty, and in that day they were all arrested and brought here to try before Judge Henry B. Wilson, United States Judge, with the old Court House that stood on that corner (indicating) and, by the way, when my mother brought me here there was a court house standing right over there where that fountain is. Now, those men were tried in the United States Court and some of them convicted, but let's pass that by because I have a very short time to speak.

The next thing that attracted my attention was the slave girl Lucy. Lucy came from Wheeling, West Virginia, seeking freedom in Cleveland, and she found employment in a house on Prospect Street, and they found her there and arrested her, and they took her up into the Government Building and gave her to her master. Mr. Coates here, I remember my old friends, Cicero M. Richardson, one of the first citizens around here, was in what they called the mob trying to rescue her, and he got his skull broken for it, and got knocked senseless; all that in a city which now has a population of fifty thousand negroes who are doing their best to make their living and to build up the name of those who used to be slaves.

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Then the next was the Perry Monument, concerning which my dear friend Mr. Bradley Hull, Judge Hull, Judge Hull the learned and eloquent gentleman who has just addressed you about; then the Perry Monument was spoken of being there (indicating). I remember the day when it was dedicated. There came people from the far east, from the west, from the north

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and the south, and it was placed right there by the junction of Ontario Street and Superior Street, and remained there for years, until they got tired of it. You know some of us become unfashioned; we grow out of fashion just as that monument has grown out of fashion, so you, and I, and the rest of us will go out of fashion as years pass by, but if we have our hearts in the right place, if we live as we should live, we can never get out of fashion because the God of liberty is in our favor, and can hear above, and will always protect us and treat us fair. (Applause.)

Then the next thing was the great fair that was held right in the center of the Public Square (indicating). There was what they called Laurel Hall, where the two streets met; Laurel Hall, one of the most beautiful things I ever beheld. The fair was conducted to send money, and send bandages and whatever our boys needed who were down in the southland fighting for that flag and our liberty, and the liberty of our women, and the God of all nations gave us the victory and today, here, as the result of those things that have taken place, those fifty thousand people I speak of are here.

Abraham Lincoln was then president. I saw Abraham Lincoln twice in his lifetime. I saw him passing through going to Washington after he was elected. The old Weddell House was on the corner of West 6th Street and Superior Street. West 6th Street was then called Bank Street, and Abraham Lincoln stood on the porch, or veranda, and addressed a great crowd of people. He towered aloft. He was a great man physically, mentally, morally, socially and esthetically. No man in his day, in my opinion, in the country, could have been put forward who would have worked for you, and worked for me, to keep this country as Lincoln did. Have you ever considered what would happen if the Union had been destroyed, if it had been made into a north and south? After a while it would have been made into an east and west, it would have been cut up into a number of sections like the Balkan States over in Europe, and we would have each other by the throat, and instead of our being a hundred million strong and the greatest nation in the world, we would have been fighting each other like cats and dogs. Abraham Lincoln stood there. The war was on. Abraham Lincoln had to go to Washington in disguise in order