Ohio History Journal




224 Ohio Arch

224      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

speaker's stand were also seated Judge M. H. Donahue of the

Ohio Supreme court, and Hon. Randolph W. Walton and Mrs.

Paul MacGahan. The veil which consisted of a Bulgarian and

American flag was presented to Dr. Bozovosky and Paul Mac-

Gahan. The detachment of O. N. G. formed a guard of honor

about the grave and the famous Seventh regiment band dis-

coursed several appropriate selections.

 

 

REMARKS OF JAMES B. YAW.

J. A. MacGahan, a son of Perry County, lies buried here.

We have set apart this time to speak of him and to unveil

a monument erected to his memory.

This day, July 4th, and the event we have met here to cele-

brate, are appropriately and happily joined together. The one,

no less than the other, symbolizes

progress in the history of man, the re-

pression of tyranny, the freedom of

a nation.

The heroic deeds of our fore-

fathers, fighting and dying for home

and liberty, have been perpetuated

in stone and poetry and in the hearts

of our countrymen. Throughout the

world and among all people, there ex-

ists a common sympathy and feeling

of indignation whenever the inalien-

able rights of man are denied and

persecution takes the place of protec-

tion.  As members of the great

Brotherhood of Man, we meet here

to honor the memory of one who immolated his strength, his

ability, his genius for others. One, who in the short span of

years given him brought smiles to the faces of thousands where

before there had been only tears and long drawn lines of suffer-

ing.

We meet here, also, as fellow country-men of MacGahan

and in that capacity, we unveil the stone that stands at his

grave. I say this because the monument erected here is only of


The MacGahan Monument

The MacGahan Monument.               225

 

local significance. It can not honor MacGahan in Europe or

American. It can not honor him anywhere nor in the memory

of any person. The stone can do this, and this only: that when

his countrymen or strangers pass this way, they will be reminded

that this is sacred ground, that one greater than a king lies

here, that to this spot, is due more deference than to a king's

mausoleum.

I have often thought of the career of MacGahan. It is a

wonderful story. From the log cabin in the backwoods of our

county to the Liberator of a people, is a long road. At an

early age, poverty forced him to leave home. You can see him

struggling, alone and unaided. At last, his worth not to be

hidden by adverse conditions, aroused the interest of a great

journalist. Then it was that his great heart began to come into

its own. With keen perceptions and undaunted courage he

wrote.

Whether he was suffering the hardship of the polar regions

in order to paint the words, the glories of nature, or in Paris,

during the Commune where the terrors of a guillotine sentence

were laid upon him it was always that same devotion to truth

and principle that lead him on.

It was to the people of the war-swept Balkan region that

MacGahan rendered his greatest service and made his final sac-

rifice. To these down-trodden simple people his heart went out

and in his letters to London, he put his whole soul. They seemed

to be written in blood and stained with the tears of the people

whose wrongs he pictured. Although not a citizen of Europe,

without money or position, yet MacGahan forced the Nations

of The Old World to heed the cry of humanity.

It is somewhat strange that our country, one of the young-

est of the family of nations; that one of the youngest states

of this country, and even yet one of the youngest counties of

that state, should send a man, not west, nor north, nor south, but

back over the path of progress to light the torch of liberty

where civilization had failed to nourish that sacred flame.

 

 

Vol. XXI- 15.