France's Gift Accepted | 1886-10-29 | The New York Times

FRANCE'S GIFT ACCEPTED FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES DATED OCTOBER 29, 1886 FRANCE'S GIFT ACCEPTED LIBERTY'S STATUE UNVEILED ON BEDLOE'S ISLAND A GREAT HOLIDAY TO BE REMEMBERED IN THIS CITY. MAGNIFICENT LAND AND WATER PARADES, IMPOSING CEREMONIES, AND THE PRESENCE OF A GREAT MULTITUDE MARK THE OCCASION. LIBERTY A hundred fourths of July broke loose yesterday to exalt her name, and, despite the calendar, rolled themselves into a delirious and glorious one. At daybreak the city stirred nimbly and flung a million colors to the heavy air, for the Cloud King had covered the heavens and moved upon the waters. But she plumed herself and showered, scarlet and snow and azure and gold, defying the skies to darken her festival. Then streamed the people, convergent rivers of life, hurrying and sweeping through a thousand channels to the path of the pageant. There, eddying or gathered, or running counter to the onward tide, till the great thoroughfares overflowed and billows of humanity surged crosswise and splashed sprays of small boys to every ledge and cornice and accessible foothold, till the very lampposts were crowded and the doomed telegraph poles creaked with their burden. There was no solemnity. The clerk of the weather had done his miserable best to make things gloomy and forbidding, but American spirit rose to the occasion, bubbling with enthusiasm and frolic, and would have none of the dampness thrust upon it by the changeful wind or the sloppiness beneath. By eight o'clock the plot thickened, and the blare of bugles, the jolting of caisson and gun, the measured tread of regiment after regiment swinging into line, the clash of arms and the captain's sharp cry, the throbbing roar of a all spoke of busy preparation for the peaceful march of glorious war. And about this time the prevailing features of the scenery were drum-majors and uproarious bands. It seemed to have rained brass bands during the night and hailed gorgeousness, with no drainage to carry the surplus away. There were bands of seventy pieces and bands of seven, bands striped and feathered and zoned and trimmed and buttoned galore, not a square inch of plainness visible on any tooting touton from top to toe, bands somber and sad and thin, looking as though they had been packed away in a damp trunk some time about the centennial, with no camphor, and had just emerged somewhat moldy and careworn and a little moth-eaten, but amazingly enthusiastic and discordant, bands from every armory, theater, and dance-hall in the city, windy bands from Boston with vociferous horns, mild bands from Buffalo with a dropsicle tuba that cadenced the march with immeasurably abysmal grunts, bands from Hoboken and Newark, each man throwing his whole soul into a different tune, bands from Sing Sing and Poughkeepsie and Newburgh, each man throwing his whole soul into no tune at all, bands from Albany that ought to have been poisoned or blown up on the way, squealing and wheezing their excited chorus through the maddened air, bands from Washington that could be heard a mile, bands from Philadelphia that couldn't be heard at all, and seemed merely to be going through the motions, but doing their best, bands proud and bands humble, bands full and bands skimpy, they tooted and whistled and shrieked, more and more coming each minute, and still they came. And the drum-majors. If there is anything in appearance, the pay of a drum-major must be sixty-four thousand dollars a year, and he ranks the commander-in-chief. He is nickel-plated in his humblest places, and gilded and embroidered and furred the rest. Then baldrick and belt and scarf and aguiletto and draped and girded about, and with baton and sword of peerless burnish he is dazzlingly complete. Where is the major-general? asked the small boy. Dunno. There's the drum-major. Take the drum-major in his pride, nine feet high and four thick and swelling as he comes. Nothing moves till he stirs. The serried line is at rest, the captains chatting, the men at ease. The horns big and little in the band are still, and the unwalked drum is asleep. Suddenly the drum-major stiffens. All is instant commotion. Ten shunt. Pre-hump. The muskets are lifted together, horns big and little are raised, a pause, and thirty puckers hold the band in a spell, and the athletic gentleman with the skin-potato-masher prepares to administer a soul-stirring thump to the jumbo-drum. The drum-major lifts his baton. The puckers increase, and apoplexy is imminent. He gives it a flip and a twirl, bang, boom, a wound, snort, rattle, and bray from the horns altogether, and the pageant moves, for so the drum-major has willed, in glittering general and staff, the prancing steeds and steady legions, the music and feathers and lace and flash of ominous steel, three miles of obsequious glory tread in his train. From the roof of the post-office yesterday the scene was beautiful, bewildering and impressive. The very darkness of the day seemed but to make each color brighter, and the great street was gay from the teeming square to where it turns at the marble spire and is lost to view, a thousand flags and streamers, banners and devices, pendent and glowing, to brighten the scene. Thick as an angry anthill swarmed every foot of roadway, and window and staircase and roof were crowded to see. Suddenly the clatter of hoofs sent a sharp command, and obedient the multitudes parted. Then the flowing of that river of color and sparkle, brighter and brighter as it neared, the air trembling to the tones of sonorous brass, and the brigade strode proudly by, regulars and our own, with troops from sister states sending tribute to honor the day. Two miles of these, and in the societies of the children of France, then the judges and governors, the mayors, the veterans of wars whose memory we cherish for the heroes they gave us, the police of Philadelphia and Brooklyn, the carriage of the father who gave us liberty, knights of Pythias and Templars, and then amid a whirlwind of cheers, the volunteer fire laddies, red-shirted and haughty, dragging the precious relic of struggles and glories long dead and half forgotten. Like a comet the pageant burned its way and swept seaward, dissolving like a dream. Then the wild rush for the river and bay where the mighty statue stood facing the east. Sullen the sky and tumultuous the waters, but little cared they that went down in the ships or they that thronged the sea-wall and wharf with expectant eyes. The clouds had lowered till the gray and gray commingled. From the battery the island and the statue were shrouded in mist. The hurrying thousands stopped and stared upon the driving vapor, then laughed and pressed onward to find ferry or tug or steamer or barge. Philosophers of the school of forethought brought rod and bait and tackle, ranged themselves along the string-piece, and merrily yanked the shining squilgy from the vasty deep. Adventurous souls chartered wary or dingy, and tumbled about on the waves like a cockle, merrily missing this paddle-wheel to encounter that, and earning many a frenzied pilot's blessing. There stole a white-winged yacht like a ghost, coming and vanishing and coming again. Huge steamers swept in stately silence to the main. Here, there, and everywhere moved the ferries and the passenger-boats, whose machinery seemed perpetually reaching down into the cabin for something it never quite succeeded in fetching up, all black with humanity, now lifted the brooding cloud for a moment and showed the ships of war, brilliant with bunting, pointing to the tide, the island, the waiting goddess, a hundred plunging tugs and speeding yachts and saucy launches, each a mass of clustering color. Then the cloud dropped again, and they were hidden. Unseen tugs bellowed hoarse warnings and were answered. Fog-horns brayed from the crawling schooners, the throb of coming paddles was heard, and nothing seemed but a gliding shadow. Now it pleased the skies to drizzle and wilt the enthusiastic citizen's collar and huddle him wherever shelter was afforded. Then a puff of sudden wind drove the comfort from his bones and invested him with a chill. It was dismal sightseeing by the water's edge, and strong rhetoric was in favor. Suddenly, above the signal shrieking of the watchful pilots, came a new and more maddening din. Something had broken loose and plenty of it. A hundred vessels lay beside the docks as dozing, the lazy smoke drifting listlessly and the engines still. Now all was bustle. Crowds hurried to the gangways and embarked. The hosers were lifted from the piles, the pilots spun the wheel to starboard, and blew a long and terrible blast. A hidden bell tinkled somewhere. There was a muffled roar and a beating of waters. The salt air took new vigor and the waves rolled swifter and more darkly by. The city had vanished. Again the whimsical wind withdrew the veil, and the naval pageant startled the eye. Twenty abreast, the four running tugs casting the white spume high from their bowels and thrusting the billows aside in contempt, shrieking as only tugs can, snorting and coughing, see devils that they are, out for a frolic and no work and determined for this day to paint the harbor red. Behind them huge bulks moved stately, steamers bearing their thousands, scowls plebeian and yachts aristocratic, dredges fresh from delving, nondescripts, fish from some aboriginal canal, proud warriors of the sea, ferry-boats, freighters, coasting steamers and river-craft, everything that could float and move was there, a world of shipping, flying every flag the ocean knows. Such a tooting and bellowing and churning as whipped the waters about the island into yeast as they took their places, as never in the wildest pilot's dream been seen before, and a hundred collisions impendent at once and were averted by that neat turn in the nick of time which only these tricksters of the wheel understand. For a moment more the clouds relented and showed the city's spires, the groves of Staten Island, the marvellous bridge, the grim old fort, the peerless sweep of river, the clustered heights of Brooklyn and Jersey, the stretch of water through the narrow seaward, and all the pomp and bustle of the greatest harbor in the world, then like a pall, fast settling, shrouded all. Again nothing but the throng of shipping, nervous shifting expectant, and the mighty figure with the lifted torch. The time had come. From out the hedging vapors clambered a shrill voice for right-of-way, and the dispatch drove at full speed through the frightened tugs, in and out the ranks of the men of war, and came to rest. Then from the flagship the quick gleam and shock of the salute, taken up and re-echoed, gun after gun, to honor the chief of the nation. Then a lull and a silence, the fleet rocking sleepily on the swell. All eyes were fixed upon the veil which hid the mighty face. Half an hour passed. Suddenly it dropped, and the majesty of the goddess was seen. Thunder after thunder shook cloud and sea. The brazen voice of steam lifted its utmost clamors. Colors dipped. Men cheered and women applauded. The sounds from the sea were hurled back from the land. Bell spoke to Bell and canon to canon, till all men of the thousands gathered in her honor knew that liberty had been given and received. End of article