The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 4, 1897, Page 17

Call s o i i I AL A\ |ilffy il Out in Golden Gate Park there stands | looking the peovle of to-day laboring in an elaborate statue of a basebali-player. is s oliage, and it is harmoniously out- | ned against a background of e, With the baseball-p! terpiece. Out on Mission street, in the back vard | of a tenement-house, stands a statue of | (George Wa-hington. It is the only statue | of George Washington extant in t of the country. Carved on the the pedestal are th words war, first in peace and first in the hearts trymen.” In a tenemen nds, surrounded by a high | over which the weather- of it looms likea grim specter s—a startlin shuddery, der as it breaks suddenly of unsuspecting patriots and down Mission street, abstractions. And out in ark, where people congre- the cares of business may be stands the statue of the base- mended to the gaze of the leisure to be patriots sake. lowers and a lawn for the atblete; rubbi-h and dirt and a boarded: U Y -ground for the petriot. It would seem in this most 1efined e the advantage of | st in peace and first | s of one’s countrymen is not | nible to the naked eye as | e compensations for im- Z If on the baseball field | ltiplied to the extent of embrac- | n spectacular rewards whicha in the course of his' long | aréer in the hearts of his countrymen, | er he is dead, is likely to miss. beaten L of forgotten chiil upon the s iravel y rem Men, wom ck so enth that elys oluntary of General Washing- ts grand proportions ath like a sentinel barricading to any unseemliy indulgences. It » father of our pleasure ground in its living original was the father try in nd it exercised a ence over those who passed aternal shadows on the way to even as the living father him- wielded an in#ftience over those \\'111)1 sed under his directing eye on the way tle. 3 10 does not remember the great statue | ondest veneration and pride? With | »es not the recollection of its ihe carven finely molded countenance y of its mple form dearest picture of Washington we | ever seen? Associated as it is of the b intervals in linked i with our child- eption of the weekly holiday, ad and front of which it stood as welcom us into | , it embodies tatne of a great hington ought | en care of—this one ought to be mounted on a high hill over- rounded by flowers and bright | years ago playing in their infancy, and it s n and | with a reverence infinitely grester every bery which blends into a whole pic- | ume they go out into the sunshine of a yer as the cen- | free American city. | tion of the day in 1776, which Wash’ngton | dead. Itself the star image and the ideal | |vard of an obscure tenement-house? n and children who used to | asticallv to W uodwaru'sj cldom proceeded far past the | t m of pleasure | use before the | their maturity whom it weatched over onght to be looked up to by them now Shall we leave Washington in the back yard? On this Fourth of July the fire- crackers are popping on the sidewalk by the high-board fence. The commemora- made glorious in the history of the world, is transpiring amid the cracking of the paper torpedo and the booming of the miniature cannon. The smoke from the cannon and the sulphurous haze from the torpedoes are being carried by the Mis- sion winds in clouds about the gray stone head and are settling upon itand clinging to it as mute expressions of that patriotic ardor among the people which is evoked by recollection of the occasion bequeathed to them by the statue’s own immortal | token of American independence, what | would be the sensations of the statue if it could feel when touchea by the smoke of | crackers fired in honor of that same Amer- ican independence, coupled with the con- sciousness of its own position in the back Ugh! It makes an American shut his eyes and stop up his ears. To hear all this cele- brating going on and then to see George | Washington’s head peering at him over the top of a high-board fence surrounding a Mission-street residence lot makes him a sick American. I rise on this Fourth of July, in the year of our American independence one hundred and twenty-one (opening my shocked eyves and uncovering my pained ears for the purpose), to propose the forthright removal of the Washineton statue from its present ignominious quar- ters. We may save the honor of the day, serious impairmentof which is threatened by the foregoing deplorable circumstance, by devoting an hour out of the twenty- four to solemn and diligent planning for surcease of the circumstance henceforih forever. Choose the hour at night, an’ it please ye, and do your planning while lying awake on your pillow—a proceding, by tbe way, which greatly promotes thought—but do not fail to do it at some hour ere the sun rises on another day. Fourth of July in San Francisco may be made to wear a double significance in future, \ating from to-day. The reclama- tion of the famous old statue of Washing- ton would add a great local importance, and a memorable one, to an occasion that is already universally associated with the patron saint of independence. We love that statue for itself; we love its rusty old exterior, its chipped surface, its nicks, its scars, its rugged air of experience in the | wars of time and weather; and, above all, we love it for the part it played in our youthfu! days, for the influence it wrought over our holidays of pleasure, for the American sentiment with which it ine spired our young hearts every time we vaused 1n reverence before it. This is the day of all days on which to pay it our tardy gratitude, even if we care nothing for its broader and more general deserts, which I hope we do care for, and which I hope we shall proceed shortly to bestow, as true and grateful Americans, in return for the blessings of a free land, as well as simple and grateful S8an Franciscans in re- turn for the good it did us wken it stood like a sentinel of peace in the pleasure gardens of our youth. The history of the statue has not been particularly romantic, and the inception and execution of the plans which led to its erection in Woodward’s Gardens were even of the most prosaic and unsenti- mental character. It was only in its sub- sequent association with the people, espe= cially with the younger Americans, that it took on its symbolical and picturesque significance and became in spirit what it purported to represent 1n cold material, The personality in the statue which be came so real and so friendly in the minds of the children who grew up under its | shades was not laid on with the plaster. | It grew on with the passing of the human | tides which eddiea and flowed around its foundation, day afier day and year after vear. The close of Woodward's Gardens marked the downfall of a hero. The hero was sold for §1 50 at auction along with tne monkeys and the wild asses of Peru. The doom of the great pleasure ground shad been foreshadowed by a gradual decline for some years previous to the finai col- lapse, but the shock occasioned by the { actual, irretrievable loss of them was sufficient to obscure in the peo- ple’s minds the circumstance that their friend, the statue patriot and father, had dropped completely out of view. So remarkable a metamorphosis—so stupefy- ing a transition from a plane of eminent favor to one of obscure unpreferment— was at the time too enormous to strike comprenensibly upon public attention. It has taken us a long whiie to realize what | happened to us and to remember what | went down in the wreck when the auc- tioneer's bammer fell upon our para- dise of youth. And it is only to-day, on a Fourth of Juiy four yvears after the calamity occi rred, that we are introduced face to face with the situation and shown a way to correct the injustice of a colossal | oversight. CARROLL CARRINGTON. rried me up toward the! Hotel, stopped sud- | t into the puzzling ily at the white doors r the number of the right room. d 1t at last by the aid | of the boy who had taken my card up. She reccived me very graciously b I must have stared curu Oue doesn’t often have the opportunity of looking at close range =t such a great man’s daughter. “Yes,"” she said, “I am Grace Root.” She motioned me toa chair and, seat- | ierself contemplated me for awhile. | You are the daughter of G Fred- | | | | erick Root, the author of ‘The Battle Cry of Freedom,’ are you not?” 1 said. Sh2 nodded her head. Probably not one anniversary of our I. dependence day has passed without our | having heard or sung one or more of the stirringly patriotic songs of George Fr erick Koot. They are sung in the public schools regularly by thousands of sweet- voiced children ali over the land and at -spirited meeting which has ative thc love of conntry. “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,” *“The Battle | Cry of Freedom,” *‘The Vacant Chair” | and “Just Belore the Batile, Mother,"” are | all so well known to the citizens of this Jand that even a reference to them almost sets us all to singing. This daugbter of his happens to be in San Francisco on this Fourth of July, t! rough her connection with the Lyceum Theater Company, which is playing an en- | ement here. Have you been In the theatrical profes- sion long?” I asked. “Not very long,” she replied. “I de-! termined to adopt it only a year and a bal* ago. Last fall—the eariy fall of 1896--1 was engaged by Mr. Fro: man in New York. Thisis my first trip out to this coast, of course.” +And you enjoy it?” “Yes, indeed I"" she exclaimed. “But it is very different from Maine—that was my home, you know. My father would have been inspired by the sight of your wonderful hills to have written far greater things than he did,” she said. “Could he have done that?"’ “Perhaps not in a way,” she replied. ~Ob! T um very proud of him."” | “Which is the most popular of all his songs?”’ I asked. “‘The Battle Cry ot Freedom,’” she an- swered quickly, *It was sirange—the way he came to write that, I mean. I bave often heard him tell of it. He was in Chicago, and it was during the heaviest every pub an in NTERVIEW WITH THE DAUGHTER 0 MISS GRACE ROOT, Daughter of George Frederick Root, the musical composer. Miss Root is now in San Francisco with the Lyceum Theater Company, of which she has been a member for two seasons. An interesting interview upon her father’s work is here given. 5.5 GEORGE FREDERICK ROOT, Composer of ‘“ The Battle Cry of Freedom,” * Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys,” * Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, toe Boys Are Marching,” and many other famous patriotic songs. His youngest daughter is now in San Francisco, and an interview with her accompanies this sketch. R NN i \\\3\‘,\;;‘_\ \ MRS. CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM, Another distinguished member of the Root family. Mrs. Burnham is the author of ‘‘ The Wise Woman” and other famous novels, and is widely known in American literary circles. She is the oldest of a family of six notable children of a notable man. A FAMOUS COMPOSER part of the war, when Lincoln was calling for troops. He lay on his couch in the rooms at the bote! and could kear plainly the music ana the drumsand the tramp of the marching feet. Inspired by thess sounds and the thonughts that came t him of what it all meant, he went to the table und wrote ‘The Battie Cry of Free- . dom.” A few hours afterward a commit« tee waited upon him with a request that he furnish it with a song to be sung at a meeting that evening. The one which be bad just written was gladly accepted, learned and sung, and its popularity hag never lessened since that night.” ““The last time that he was in London,” his daughter went on, “it was found that his songs filled twenty-four pages of the catalogue in the British Museum. The whole of the civilized world seems to have appreciated him,” she added. “W hat was his last published song?”” «+Qur Flag.’ He was at work just be. fore his death on the final chorusof a cantata which has not been published. - | Shall we publisnit? Ob, yes, eventually,” | she said. “My father had a very sweet voice,” she went on after a pause. ‘‘He used to write bis songs and then sinz them to my mother and those of the children who were at home. I can remember hearing bim sing them over and over again and we never got tired of them. Home bas never been the same since he aiel. His death, which occurred in August, 1895, was 30 sudden and was an awlul shock to us all. “He seemed in the best of health, hale.. and bearty. Although he was 75 years of age he did not look it. Why, he used to romp with us until we got ioo dignified, or thought we were. His death oceurred at Bailey Island, near Portland, Me. You can’t imagine how many friends he had. “There were six of usin the family be- sides my mother—s x children, you Enow. Nearly all of them are doing well for themselvas now. I am theonly one on the stage.”” N Mr. Root’s eldest daughter, Clara Louise Burnham, is well known in literary cizcles in the East, and her writings have been widely read both East and West. Besiies other work she has written one novel of more 'than ordinary note, “The Wise Woman,” which was published about two years ago and was an instantaneous suce cess. As a family the Roots are carrying for- ward the fame of the name which George . Frederick Root, the distinguished head thereof, so ably grounded in the history of our country, JEAN MORRIS., |