We hold Cologne, at least until the acceptance of our terms of peace by
the now defeated Germany. Why should we not exact the restitution of
these bells to now triumphant France? War-lust created them, and thus
far they have known no other theme than praise of their creator. Let's
melt them down and give them back to France, recast for nobler use and
given tongues of peace; or break them into bits and let a portion go to
each and every one of our Peace _carillons_, there to proclaim
throughout the world the triumph of a great and glorious cause.
Imagine, then, these _carillons_ complete and carried high aloft within
their towers, there to speak forth from year to year the nation's joys
and sorrows; a pæan of thanksgiving now; again a vesper service soft
and sweet, or, when we pay our loving tribute to the nation's dead, a
solemn dirge shall waft across the river and like a benediction fall
upon the hushed and reverent throng. On every state occasion they
would serve; at our inaugurals, give farewell thanks to the departing
president and loyal greetings to the newly chosen chief; do homage to
the great of foreign lands and ring glad welcome when they come to us
from overseas; would celebrate the nation's birth with jubilant peal
on peal; and on the anniversary of that November day that marked the
final triumph of Humanity, let there be rung from all the capitals a
grand _Te Deum_ of World Brotherhood.
And so in fancy let us dedicate these _carillons_ to Peace, and say with
Tennyson:
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
. . . . . . . .
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
A MEMORIAL BUILDING WITH BELL TOWER AND PEACE CARILLON.
A CONCRETE STATEMENT LOOKING TO THE PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA
PRESENTED IN THE FOREGOING PAGES:
OBJECT: It is here proposed that in the city of Washington there shall
be erected a national memorial to commemorate the heroes and events of
the great war, seeking to keep the chief emphasis on the esthetic and
moral side rather than on that of physical triumph of armed force.
DESCRIPTION: A memorial building of monumental architectural
proportions, to include as an essential embellishment a bell-tower at
least 200 feet high to the bells and of sufficient lateral dimensions to
provide a bell-chamber 25 feet square.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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