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A MEMORIAL TO
PATRICK A. COLLINS

k.

A MEMORIAL

TO

PATRICK A. COLLINS

HISTORY OF ITS INCEPTION, ESTABLISH-
MENT AND DEDICATION

This little volume is published by the Collins Memorial
Committee

BOSTON

Geo. H. Ellis Co., 272 Congress Street

1909

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The popular impulse to perpetuate the name
and the public record of Mayor Patrick A.
Collins by some form of memorial grew strong
and pressing soon after his death in September,
1905. Just a week after his interment in
Holyhood Cemetery, a meeting of representa-
tive men of Boston was held, at 53 State Street,
to consider ways and means to meet the demand
of the people for recognition of his high char-
acter and of his distinguished services to the
Nation, the State, and the City. The chair
was occupied by the Hon. Richard Olney,
and there were present prominent clergymen
of various religious beliefs, bankers, merchants,
lawyers, doctors, and personal friends.

Brief addresses were made by the distin-
guished chairman and by many prominent
members of the representative assemblage, and
all the speakers favored the establishment of
some form of memorial to be designed in a
manner suitable to the wishes of the people
and acceptable to the artistic sense of the com-
munity.

An Executive Committee was chosen to give
effect to the desires of the people as they found
expression in the press and in the addresses
of the gentlemen who had responded to the call.
This committee was empowered by vote to
raise the funds needed, to determine the form
which the Memorial should take, and to proceed,
without further instructions, to do all that the
meeting had outlined.

At the head of this body Mr. Jerome Jones
was placed. Mr. James J. Storrow was chosen

Treasurer, and Mr. M. P. Curran was made
Secretary. With these were associated, by unani-
mous vote of the meeting, Dr. John G. Blake,
Robert M. Burnett, Right Rev. William Byrne,
D.D., the Hon. Edwin Upton Curtis, the Hon.
Thomas J. Gargan, Lieutenant-Governor Curtis
Guild, Jr., Thomas B. Fitzpatrick, Right Rev.
William Lawrence, D.D., James M. Prendergast,
A. Shuman, General Charles H. Taylor, and
Lucius Tuttle.

This Committee entered upon the arduous
and delicate task imposed upon it with earnest-
ness and zeal. It issued an appeal to the public
for subscriptions. The answer to this was so
prompt and generous that within two days
there was substantial evidence that the work
of the Committee would have the support of
the community. The appeal was issued on
September 27, 1905, and on September 29 the
Treasurer acknowledged through the press the
receipt of $11,290. On October 16, or in six-
teen working days, there was received $25,-
674.25, or more money than the Committee
asked for.

No collectors or solicitors were employed.
Every dollar received by the Treasurer was
sent in or brought in; and there were over 600
contributors, the sums ranging from $500 to
ten cents. It may be said that the record in
this case is probably without parallel. The
Committee closed the subscription lists on
October 29, and the Treasurer had then in his
possession the sum of $26,444.12.

The Committee decided early in its delibera-
tions that the Memorial should be an addition
to the artistic treasures of the city, and that it

should assume the form of a gateway to one of
the public parks or of a statue in one of the
squares. It was decided also that, if possible,
a Boston artist should design and execute the
work. With this object in mind the Committee
issued an invitation to Boston sculptors, archi-
tects, and persons of artistic taste to submit
suggestions, designs, models, or advice which
might aid the Committee in its purpose to get
the best and most meritorious plan for the
Memorial.

It soon came to be known that four eminent
sculptors of Boston had begun to work on the
plans and designs, and that all of them had
adopted the scheme of a statue as the most
fitting. The Boston Society of Architects cheer-
fully responded to the request of the Committee
for advice and counsel. Messrs. J. Randolph
Coolidge, Jr., R. S. Peabody, and C. H. Black-
all, acting as a committee of that body, rendered
voluntary and valuable assistance in the selec-
tion of the best design and the most desirable
location for the monument.

On February 1, 1907, a contract was signed
by the chairman of the Committee, and H. H.
Kitson and Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson for these
purposes: "The sculptors agree to design,
execute, furnish, and erect for the Committee
a suitable granite and bronze memorial to the
late Patrick A. Collins, Mayor of Boston, sub-
stantially in accordance with the model and
plans approved by the Committee on October
4, 1905, subject to the approval of said Com-
mittee and the Art Commission of the Citv of
Boston." J

On November 2, 1908, this Memorial was

unveiled, dedicated, and presented to the City
of Boston. An account of the ceremonies and
proceedings incident to the closing of the Com-
mittee's work of a little over three years will
be found in succeeding pages.

On a platform in front of the veiled monument
sat Mayor George A. Hibbard, Archbishop
William H, O'Connell, and the memorial com-
mittee. At 11 o'clock a.m. Mr. Jerome Jones,
chairman of that committee, introduced His
Grace, the Archbishop, to open the proceedings
with prayer. The assembled guests who occu-
pied the seats on the observation stand then heard
him deliver impressively the Lord's prayer: —

Our Father, who art in heaven; hallowed
be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give
us this day our daily bread; and forgive
us our trespasses, as we forgive those who
trespass against us. And lead us not into
temptation; but deliver us from evil. Amen.

ADDRESS BY MR. JEROME JONES.

Mr. Jerome Jones for the committee said: —
We have assembled here to-day to dedicate
a memorial to a distinguished citizen of Boston.
Little more than three years ago we were
startled by the intelligence that Patrick A.
Collins, Mayor of Boston, had passed away.
The impulse was spontaneous and wide-spread
that something more than the usual marks of
sorrow should bear witness to our affection for
him. At a meeting of those who had known
him best a committee was appointed to con-
sider what form a memorial should take, and
to provide means for its erection. In less than
one month the voluntary offerings of more than
five hundred of his friends had amounted to
nearly thirty thousand dollars.

The career of the subject of this outburst
of popular affection had appealed in no ordi-
nary degree to the interest of his fellow-citizens.
A poor immigrant boy, working at manual
labor, by dint of industry, faithfulness, alert-
ness, and square dealing, had risen to a high
place in his profession, and had won conspicu-
ous honors in the service of the public. These
are too well known to need recital here. They
have become a part of the cherished history
of this community.

His likeness in enduring bronze, soon to be
unveiled to your view, with the monument of
which it is a part, would fail of its real purpose,
were it merely to mark our grief at a personal
loss or even to express our sense of Boston's
obligation to a distinguished public servant.

10

This memorial should carry a nobler message
than this. It should speak to the generations
of Boston of the future, children as they will
be of every race and faith, but bound in many
cases by the comradeship of poverty and of toil,
telling them, as they rise in their long line, that
here is a land of opportunity, where industry
and faithfulness and honor may win their de-
served rewards. This memorial will become
in a larger sense a monument to American
opportunity, to the chance that is here held out
to those who apply themselves earnestly and
manfully to life's work and life's duties.

The subject of this memorial learned a trade.
He made himself useful first. He then prepared
himself by study and effort for usefulness in a
wider field. Daniel Webster's allusion to the
crowds at the bottom of the ladder and the
plenty of room at the top has seldom been more
strikingly exemplified than in the career of
Patrick A. Collins. While doing his work
faithfully at the crowded bottom, he made him-
self ready to stand securely on the rungs which
are higher up.

My personal acquaintance with Mr. Collins
covered nearly twoscore years. I enjoyed his
companionship. His wit was a peculiar source
of delight to all who came in contact with him:
it softened the rough places of life, it ironed
out the wrinkles of care. Intimacy with him
recalled Emerson's lines: "A friend may be
reckoned the masterpiece of nature."

The committee are gratified by the presence
here to-day of Mrs. Collins and members of her
family. Mr. Paul Collins, the only son of the
late Mayor, will now unveil the memorial.

SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE BY MAYOR
HIBBARD.

To the formal presentation the mayor replied :
This memorial is intended to serve as a last-
ing tribute to Patrick A. Collins, always regarded
as an example of the highest type of our citi-
zenship. A man of the strictest integrity, his
public activities throughout his career were
actuated by the highest ideals. Thoughtless of
self, but ever mindful of the welfare of others,
— his character at all times unsullied, — his capa-
bilities and virtues were recognized and appre-
ciated, not only by this country, but by the
governments and people of other lands.

I cannot express in any more forcible or
direct manner my appreciation of his high
and conspicuous Americanism or his lofty pa-
triotism than by quoting this excerpt from one
of his notable addresses: "I kneel at the altar
of my fathers, and I love the land of my birth,
but in American politics I know neither color,
race, nor creed. Let me say here and now that
there are no Irish voters among us. There are
Irish-born citizens, like myself, and there will
be many more of us, but the moment the seal
of the court was impressed upon our papers
we ceased to be foreigners and became Ameri-
cans. Americans we are, Americans we will
remain, and your children, native-born men,
and mine, I trust, will live together in amity and
peace in this great and free country as Ameri-
cans. In this lies the safety of our institutions,
in this is the guarantee of the Union."

12

I am deeply gratified that, as mayor of the
city of Boston, I have the opportunity to accept
this tribute to his memory. The inscription
upon it portrays the broadness and liberality
of the man, and the municipality is grateful to
the donors. It shall be the duty and the pleas-
ure of the citizens to preserve the memorial
in perpetuity.

Owing to the inclemency of the weather, the
committee decided to hold the further exercises
incident to the dedication in the ball-room of the
Hotel Somerset, and thither the guests went,
on invitation. On a raised platform were
seated the living former mayors of the city and
all persons having part in the exercises. When
all were seated, Chairman Jones introduced the
Hon, John D. Long, who delivered the formal
address.

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EX-GOVERNOR LONG'S ADDRESS.

It is not the discharge of a perfunctory duty,
but a labor of love, to take my part in this tribute
to Patrick Andrew Collins. With you who
knew him well, and to whom he is still a warm,
living personality, I delight to join in putting
in permanent place in the heart of the city
which honored |him and which he honored this
lifelike counterfeit of his face. With you I
vividly recall his generous eloquence, his spark-
ling and kindly wit, his magnanimous spirit, his
embodied integrity of mind and heart.

Some one of our talented representatives of
his fellow Irish blood would more eloquently
portray his life and character, as Mr. Curran
has so admirably written his biography. But
I am here because to those in charge it has
seemed fitting that the word of this occasion
should be spoken by one of that stock which is
indebted to him for so handsomely promoting
in our social and political life the assimilation
with that stock of his own. Erin and Columbia
join in this tribute as in yonder statuary group
they support him, one on either side.

That word, heartfelt, if meagre, I speak
as his friend countryman and lover. And
I speak it for the Puritan and Pilgrim as well
as for his own and every other nationality whose
blood has mingled with theirs and his. And
I speak it to you who represent all these inter-
woven fibres of our present cosmopolitan citizen-
ship.

We are erecting a memorial not to a famous
man of past time who has become a historic

14

figure and only whose historic characteristics
have filtered down to us, — a distillation of un-
mixed virtues rather than a personality of flesh
and blood, — but to one who was our recent
contemporary and who, active in our chief
municipal office, his voice ringing in the very
front of the conflicts of the time, his counsel
sought, his service invaluable, was cut off in
his prime, the touch of his hand still lingering
in ours. No need to draw, for your own con-
sciousness at once paints upon your mind's
eye, the picture of the man, the tall, easy-
swinging figure, the attractive kindly intelligent
mobile face, the responsive smile, the swift apt
repartee, the cordial manner.

It is this that gives a special charm to the
tribute we now pay him. Our city is rich in its
statues of its great ones. Among them are
statesmen, soldiers, reformers, philanthropists,
scholars, some of them undoubtedly superior
to him in permanent fame, in conspicuousness
of service, and in lasting influence. But at
sight of which of them, as we gaze at the like-
ness, so quickly springs from the heart the
smile or tear of responsive comradeship ?

It is a good feature in our modern life that the
personal memorial is so frequent, — such as that
most impressive and beautiful figure of the shel-
tering angel of death, the handiwork of the
foremost of American sculptors, at the grave of
the wife of a private citizen; or the published
volume of the life of the woman who, as head
of a great female college, gave it larger distinc-
tion and range, but who also gave to her home,
from the heart of which the volume came, the
benediction of paradise. It is a peculiar de-

15

light of this occasion that we blend the personal
and public recognition of one who adorned
private and public life, and who at once won
the confidence of the people he served and the
love of the hosts of friends he made.

It seems to me, contrary to the conventional
notion, that the dominant chord in the life of
Collins is that of good fortune, — fortunate in
the stock from which he came, in the island of
his birth, in the gifts of nature's bestowal, in
his education, and in the circumstances which,
under a seemingly frowning providence, hid
the smiling faces of good angels who hovered
about him and guided his footsteps. To be
born an Irishman is to inherit the daring spirit
inspired by centuries of resistance to political
and religious oppression, by the heroisms of
a subject but stubbornly resisting race, and
by the traditions which associate every inch
of native soil with legend and story of adventure
and brave deeds. It is to inherit the contagious
ardor that springs from the undaunted uprising
out of the bitterness of defeat as well as out
of the glory of victory, and from the song of the
native poet, the eloquence of the orator, the
intense passion of the patriot, and the height of
religious and national enthusiasm.

The sorrows of Ireland, the very essence of
pathos, yet infused with the vivacity, the quick
wit, the shrewdness, and cheery humor of the
race, have made it to its children a land of inspi-
ration and eager hope. Was there ever a more
impassioned loyalty to mother land ? Its states-
men, orators, soldiers, devotees, priests, poets,
and writers, more often than otherwise serving
and illumining other lands than their own, have

16

enrolled their names on the upper scrolls of
fame. Its natural beauties, from which so
many a worthy son has been exiled, have never
lost their hold on his memory or his dreams.
Who does not know that exquisite description
by Macaulay of picturesque Kerry, within fifty
miles of which Collins was born, — "the most
beautiful tract in the British Isles, — the moun-
tains, the glens, the capes, stretching far into the
Atlantic, the crags on which the eagles build,
the rivers brawling down rocky passes, the
lakes overhung by groves in wnich the wild
deer find covert. On the rare days when the
sun shines out in all his glory the landscape has
a freshness and a warmth of coloring seldom
found in our latitude. The myrtle loves the
soil. The arbutus thrives better than even on
the sunny shore of Calabria. The turf is of
a livelier hue than elsewhere; the hills glow
with a richer purple; the varnish of the holly
and ivy is more glossy; and berries of a brighter
red peep through foliage of a brighter green."

To say, then, of Collins that he had the gifts
of his race and of his native isle is to attribute
to him some of the most charming and brilliant
qualities of human nature. It is to associate
him with the romantic legends of the days
"when the O'Neils and O'Donnells were inde-
pendent princes," with the exquisite sentiment
and humor of Goldsmith, the luminous elo-
quence of Burke, the splendid heroism of
Sarsfield, the tuneful verse of Moore, the pathos
of Emmet, the devotion of Father Mathew —
but why count all the sparkling jewels of the
diadem! Other lands have as great treasures
of glorious names and memories; but with

17

Ireland, perhaps owing to the very sorrows
and afflictions which for so many years either
drove her sons into exile or repressed them at
home, her inspirations have seemed to intensify
themselves into the spirit and culture of her
children as have those of no other land. How

many examples of this come to our minds!

none more striking than Collins whom we honor
to-day. And let me not forget his especially
chosen and close confreres whose symposiums
with him are already among our local traditions,
O'Reilly and Roche and Gargan, the turf above
two of whom has for many months been green
and above the other has just been watered
with our tears.

Of such stuff as this surely must have been
the angels that ministered at the birth of Collins;
and fitting it was that in his humble native
Irish cot in Ballanafauna, ere yet his lips could
lisp in numbers, the great orator Daniel O'Con-
nell laid the benediction of his hand upon the
boy's head, predicting his rise to fame and
dedicating his life to public service. May not
at the same time the electric spark of that
eloquent tongue have flashed into the boy's
soul and charged it full !

In 1848, at four years of age, Collins was an
immigrant to this country from Ireland. His
father, an Irish tenant farmer under the depres-
sion of the Irish landlord system, had died the
year before and left his family in poverty. It
was the year of the famine which, robbing the
Irishman of his potato, robbed him of all he had
of his own in this world's goods. The father
was a man of strong natural parts, with a schol-
arly bent that found expression in fugitive

18

verse. He was of that class of men of more than
ordinary natural abilities, industry, thrift, and
force, an exodus of whom the famine of that
year sent to our shores. In their earnestness,
their loyalty to their religious faith, their en-
durance and toil, their neighborly allegiance
to one another, they were not unlike our Puritan
ancestors, whose immigration two centuries
earlier was also prompted by discontent with
conditions in the mother land. Their strongly
marked Celtic faces, many of which I recall
and have known as types which the sculptor
would choose, indicated their natural strength
of character, needing only education and oppor-
tunity. Deprived at home of ownership in the
soil, they here seemed to seek, first of all, each
his own house and lot of land. They worked
hard wherever work was to be had, but the
benefit of their labor was now their own. With
careful economy and great thrift they added
slowly but surely to the acquisition of property
which was at last theirs in their own right.
They were proudly self-supporting, and the
beggar or the pauper was not among them.
So they became an added rock for the security
of property, not to be carried away by any craze
for the disorganization of society or led astray
by the frenzies of the fanatic or irresponsible
agitator.

The young Irish-American of this generation,
full-fledged for all the flights of American politics,
profession, and business, will do well if he main-
tains the standard of the honest thrift and faith-
ful service of the immigrants of 1847. Above
all their domestic and family relations are worthy
of all praise. These were strengthened by

19

their religious obligations and their unswerving
allegiance to their Church. Few men have less
sympathy than I have with the claims of
ecclesiastical infallibility and domination. I
have the Puritan's disrelish for religious forms
and ceremonies and the radical's instinctive
refusal of the miraculous and supernatural.
But I acknowledge with grateful and swift
appreciation the tremendous influence of the
Catholic Church for good in our social life. How
it ignores all distinctions among its worshippers
and puts them all on the level of a common
equality before the altar of their faith! What
was a king's crown to Becket? How it holds
its people in loyalty to its standards! Nothing
is more striking than its fruit in the purity and
devotion of the family circle. For generations
the Catholic woman and wife in our country
has been an example of fidelity, whether in the
service of others or in the thrifty and indus-
trious administration of her own household.
Her daughters in turn she has trained in good
morals and useful labor. Indeed, she deserves
the crown of womanly purity and service.

Such were the men and women from whom
Collins came. Of that stamp was his widowed
mother, who, a pilgrim on " the bleak New Eng-
land shore," sought for her little ones the bless-
ings of a land of freedom, and for their sake
dared and bore all the privations and hard-
ships of her scanty lot. Hers were the true
mother's sacrifice and lifelong devotion. And
did she not have her proud reward ? And
his were the true son's love and appreciation to
the last.

If I have dwelt at length on these things,

20

Collins would have had me do so rather than
solely on him. Then, too, no man is of himself
alone. Like an individual piece in the cut-up
picture puzzles of the day, he counts only by
virtue of his surroundings. He is moulded into
shape by antecedent influence and the environ-
ment of other lives.

At once upon his arrival here began the iden-
tification of Collins with our institutional life,
his entrance into every avenue of our free op-
portunities and his training as an American
citizen. Settled in Chelsea, he went to the
public schools. There the very roughing of his
Yankee schoolmates, who persecuted him with
the heartlessness of children and the racial and
religious prejudices of that time, — happily not
of this, — only developed the self-sustaining qual-
ities of the boy and, to his honor be it said, left
no sting to fester in his heart. Eager to be
of helpful service toward the family support,
he was at work in a fish and oyster shop at
eleven. Faithful to his church duties, he was
an altar-boy and taught in Sunday-school. He
next soared to the giddy height of office and
errand boy in the law office in Boston of Robert
Morris, the colored lawyer, whose home was in
Chelsea and who had probably been attracted
by that bright, eager, intelligent young face.
He now caught the contagious atmosphere of
the courts as he saw the lawyers sitting within
the sacred bar, over the rail of which one can
fancy him gazing, listening to its wordy contests,
and no doubt dreaming, half hopelessly, of shar-
ing some day in its opportunities.

At thirteen his mother went to Ohio, where
for two years he was at hard manual labor,

21

working in fields and coal mines, driving a
market wagon and running an engine and other
machinery. Fancy what spirit meantime burned
within the boy's heart, what dreams were there!
At the end of the two years, in 1859, the family
came back to Boston. And, now a full adult,
he found more permanent employment as an
apprentice in a leading upholstery shop, of
which four years later, at nineteen, he became
foreman. He lived in South Boston, walking
to and fro. He was a charter member of the
upholsterers' union. Already his interests were
expanding, putting out their roots and feelers
into all that environed him. The opportunities
of his scanty leisure, sometimes robbed from
sleep, were neither wasted nor neglected. He
attended evening schools or spent his evenings
in the public library. His reading there was of a
wide range, ancient and modern history, the
standard novels, the best essayists and poets, —
all the best of these. He read as wisely and
as well as if directed by a college instructor,
enriching his mind with literary treasures from
which in after-life he eloquently drew, and which,
gathered in his ampler days into a generous li-
brary of his own, were his oft-sought and un-
failing refreshment and delight.

Meanwhile he was, of course, full of ardor
in the cause, which was then of acute interest,
of his native land. He was in intense sym-
pathy with its advocates in America and Ireland.
He joined its organizations, but his good sense
led him to insist on keeping the Irish issue out
of American politics. He made public addresses
and wrote articles for publication, and was fast
establishing a local reputation for clear, cogent

22

reasoning and expression and for a style direct,
eloquent, and as free from grandiloquence or
floridity as if, again, he had been under college
instruction. Already it was evident that his
true vocation was in the line of a profession
opening into the channels of public service.
At twenty-three he was an educated man.
The mechanic's toil, the evening school, the
curriculum of the public library, the immediate
close touch with the people, and their quick
responsive recognition of this bright, eager
spirit who was of them and who snared their
sympathies, — all these assured his rise as no
college degree could have done. Education
is the same, whatever the channel through which
it comes; and it came to him free and full
through the institutions and the atmosphere
of the city which he lived to repay and to honor.
Landing on our shores a child, all the best op-
portunities of American life had opened at once
wide before him; and he seized them. What
a lesson to all young men in humble circum-
stances! What seems so exceptional in the
pathway of his career is really only the ordinary
and natural pathway that is open to any who
will walk in it, — not always to the same goal,
but always to equal rewards of self-respect
and faithful service. The exceptional thing
in him is that he was wise enough to choose the
right path. I am right in saying that his was
from the first a fortunate career, but it was so
because, like Lincoln, he improved the means
to make it so.

He now in 1867, at twenty-three, began the
study of the law and at the same time began
his public political career. What more natural

23

than that this gifted young man, attending a
caucus of the Democratic party, better educated
than most men, his self-earned culture already
recognized among his associates, should be asked
to address the meeting ! What more natural than
that, under the impression made by him, he should
on the spot be chosen a delegate to the State
Convention of the party and a few months later
elected a representative to the General Court!
In that capacity he served two years, and then
served the next two years in the Senate, "the
youngest man," says Mr. Curran, "that ever
donned the senatorial toga in Massachusetts."
Point me in all the annals of the Common-
wealth to a more fortunate start for a young
man in public life. To what college graduate
has come so speedy an opening?

Of course, his foot was now on the ladder,
not by any means on the lowest round, and his
rise was assured. His legislative record had
been one of liberal and efficient service, espe-
cially in the removal of sectarian limitations
upon civil rights and in the development of
the commercial interests of the harbor of Boston.
And his reputation as a clear, eloquent, forci-
ble speaker was established.

At the end of his senatorial term in 1871,
at twenty-seven years of age, he opened his law
office. His capital in his new vocation was no
heritage of wealth, no potent array of corporate
or social influences, — as indeed these have rarely
been the capital of the successful lawyer, —
but an alert, cultured mind, an unblemished
reputation for personal worth, the prestige of
honorable political service, the confidence of
the plain people who knew him, the courage of his

24

convictions, and, above all, a consciousness of
that combination of talent with common sense
and honesty which is the best working genius.

Practice soon came, and from small begin-
nings rose to large and remunerative returns.
Had he devoted himself to it exclusively, and not
been drawn from it by the demands of a more
public career, he would have had not only the
living lawyer's eminence, but also, alas! the
dead lawyer's oblivion. The law is a jealous
mistress, and his political service compelled
him to be away long and often from her side.
In view of this it is the more striking that he
should have attained and held a place at the
bar among those of the legal profession whose
names are quickest recognized when the roll
of honor is called.

Not often at a meeting of the bar in com-
memoration of its dead members have more
earnest and appreciative tributes been heard
than at that for him. He practised in all our
courts. He was especially apt and strong
before juries. He was always in demand at
hearings before legislative committees. And
need I say that he was beloved by his fellow-
lawyers ? They cannot speak of him without
recalling his winning and lovable personality.

But his chief fame is in his more public
career. Almost continually an executive officer
and leader in the councils and organizations
of the Democratic party, member of each branch
of the General Court of Massachusetts, member
of Congress, president of the Democratic Na-
tional Convention at St. Louis in 1888, consul-
general to London, mayor of Boston at which
post he died, and a familiar figure on the plat-

25

form in political campaigns and at banquets,
public meetings, and receptions to distinguished
guests and indeed on all civic and institutional
occasions, he became the most prominent man
of his race in New England, if not indeed in
the United States. Before he was thirty, he was
chairman of the Democratic City Committee of
Boston. He was an efficient speaker on the
stump in 1874 in the election of Governor
Gaston, who put him on the gubernatorial mili-
tary staff as Judge Advocate General with the
title of General. It was a title, however, which,
with no taste for sounding military titles in
piping times of peace, he never relished. In
the presidential campaign of 1876 he was an
earnest advocate of Tilden, not only at home,
but in the Middle and Western States, winning
increased reputation for convincing eloquence.

The defeat of his candidate gave him a respite
from political service, which he improved by
a visit to Ireland, whose cause was always dear
to him. Parnell, then its leader, had recently
been in America, where the famous Land League
had been formed and Collins made its first
president. For months, speaking in all our
large cities, he had devoted himself to its ad-
vancement and to the work of raising hundreds
of thousands of dollars to be sent to Ireland. As
might have been expected, therefore, on his ar-
rival there, his welcome was heartily enthusi-
astic, distinguished by the gift of the freedom
of the city of Dublin and a municipal banquet.
But his devotion to that cause never blinded
him to fair play. When Cavendish and Burke
were foully assassinated in the public park in
Dublin, Collins, then in Boston, presided at a

26

meeting in Faneuil Hall, and denounced in no
uncertain terms "the miscreants," as he called
them, who had brought discredit on the cause
he held dear.

He was a member of Congress from the
Boston district for three terms, from 1883 to 1889.
His election, like all his elections to public
office before and afterwards, came to him, not at
his own solicitation or seeking, but at the
demand of party constituencies, which, because
of their recognition of his merit, fitness, and
ability, solicited and sought him as their best
and strongest man. There could perhaps be
no better test than this of his superiority and
of the qualities which to-day make us single
him out for an honor which is paid only to
the greater lights. I have an impression that
he was ambitious for the culture of a full
life rather than for place; that the former
he sought through books, companionships, or-
atory; that the latter came to nim without his
seeking, and that its exactions and routine,
while faithfully met, were not altogether to
his taste.

While in Congress, he served on the Judi-
ciary Committee, its legal atmosphere being
especially agreeable to him. He was largely
interested in all questions that affected the com-
mercial interests of Boston. He was charged
with the passage through the House of the
bankruptcy bill, which he was one of the fore-
most in preparing. He spoke rarely on the
floor, but always with effect. He took no part
in the running of partisan parliamentary ma-
chinery. He was, as with his genial and com-
panionable habit he could not help being,

27

popular with both sides, and was held in high
esteem. It was during this service that he so
emphatically rebuked the overzealous or under-
honest representative of certain interests who
offered him a large sum of money because,
unconscious of them and actuated only by his
own convictions, he had effectively advocated
some bill by which they benefited. He could
not be paid more than he could be purchased
in the line of his duty. Creditable as was his
Congressional career, it had little charm for
him. He declined a fourth election, and moved
out of his constituent district to avoid it.

And yet, though returning to legal practice
from which came his support, he could not
help being for the remainder of his life a public
man. The demand upon him was irresistible.
He continued to be, as he had been, in the van
of his party year after year. In the presidential
campaign of 1884 there was no more effective
speaker on the Democratic stump than he.
Mr. Blaine's hold on what was called the Irish
vote was strong. Some influential leaders and
newspapers of that complexion were earnestly
for him. It is not too much to say that Collins
by a masterly and most effective speech at
Albany, directed to that element, turned the
tide, and turned it so far that the election of his
candidate, Mr. Cleveland, was thereby as-
sured. If any one man elected Cleveland, it
was Collins. From that time on he was in
demand in all the doubtful States.

If he was not given a seat in Cleveland's
cabinet as the representative of New England,
it was not because he had not earned that dis-
tinction, but probably because of some political

28

exigency in the political situation; for Presi-
dent Cleveland fully appreciated his deserts
and capabilities, and the relations between
them were always those of cordial mutual
esteem and regard. In evidence of this Cleve-
land, after his second election in 1892, gave
one of the most lucrative and sought-for posi-
tions in his gift to Collins, appointing him consul-
general at London. Something of poetic in-
terest attaches itself to the thought of this poor
peasant boy, driven from his native isle by gov-
ernmental oppression, now in his prime return-
ing to it a distinguished citizen of the United
States and its honored consular representative
at the great capital of the British Empire under
whose allegiance he was born. It is to the
honor of that empire that its government gave
him cordial reception, with no reservation be-
cause of his lifelong and conspicuous associa-
tion with the elements that had so persistently
sought from England more generous recogni-
tion of Irish rights. For four years he was at
this post, the recipient of manifold courtesies
and commanding in the discharge of his duties
the approval of his countrymen at home and
abroad and of the authorities to whom he was
accredited.

It was a natural sequence that, after his return,
he shoidd be the choice of his party for Mayor
of Boston. Defeated in 1899, he was elected
to that biennial office in 1901 and again in
1903, holding it at the time of his death. He
entered upon its duties with high purpose, with
an earnest zeal for the honor and credit of the
city, and with an especial ambition to save it
from those inroads of extravagance and plunder,

29

those raids upon the public treasury, and those
attempts to secure selfish privilege and franchise,
which are the bane of American municipalities
and the cure of which is the crying problem of
the day. Reform in these lines is slow and hard,
but in his honesty and integrity there was every-
where confidence, and these were the bulwarks he
opposed to every flagrant or insidious foe to the
good name or material interest of the city.

But they were not a bulwark against the
inroads of a life of incessant wear and tear in

gublic service upon his physical constitution,
[e had sought a brief period of recuperation at
Hot Springs, Virginia. There suddenly the
angel of death stood at his side bringing rest,
and he died September 14, 1905. The sorrow
was universal. A hundred thousand people
thronged the streets of Boston at his funeral.
From all parts of the country and from the
island of his birth came messages of apprecia-
tion. The press, without distinction of party,
paid him warm tributes. The Suffolk bar met
in his honor. Boston had a memorial service.
A fund, contributed by hundreds of citizens,
representing all parties, races, professions, and
business interests, was raised to erect this per-
manent memorial which we unveil to-day.

I have detailed, in brief and lacking outline,
the record of his public service. But that record,
even were it complete, would be only a skeleton,
— the dry bones. It is the heart within, it is
the man himself, the warm blood coursing in his
veins, wit sparkling in his eye, his lips speaking,
— it is these that I would recall now as when I
began. What a copious nature it was! He
was a magnanimous man. Malice was not in

30

him. He fought hard, but he fought fair. He
did not strike below the belt. We who differed
from him knew him for a dangerous but always
an honorable foe. His mind was large and
liberal. His outlook was broad and generous.
Devoted to the religious faith of his fathers,
fervently devoted to the cause of Erin, he was
outspoken in his demand that neither should
stand in the way of the political duties and obli-
gations of American citizenship.

A son of toil, his youth spent in manual work,
early a charter member of a labor organization,
he yet recognized the rights of both capital and
labor. In the conflicts between them which
seem to grow more acute the more prosperous
each becomes, how invaluable would be now
and in the near years to come his counsel and
his influence! As a leader in one of our great
political parties, how invaluable in keeping its
rudder true! As a citizen, how invaluable in
the tremendous problem of preserving the bal-
ance between progress and conservatism! With
the immense inflow of elements from abroad
which have not been trained in our conventional
and old-time political and social system, we
look to his race, with its instinctive drift into
politics, its loyalty to ecclesiastical authority,
its thrift and material holdings, and its conse-
quent direct interest in the security and stability
of property and social order, as now, and here-
after to be still more, one of our great conserva-
tive forces. Would he were still living to em-
body and enforce its influence!

As head of a family, loyal son, devoted hus-
band and father, where is there a sweeter pict-
ure or a better example of domestic life ? What

31

wonder that whether in Washington or London,
his heart turned to the Massachusetts fireside,
and that no official honor, no triumph of the
forum, no plaudit of delighted audiences, sup-
planted the charm of home, the voices of wife and
children, the serene companionship of his books !

It was indeed a copious, a sweet, genial nature.
The sunshine ran through it. Some of his bright
sayings are as familiar among us as household
words. Rising sometimes to the height of the
orator, always through his speech played the
lambent glow of kindly humor. It was a pleas-
ure to meet him, to clasp hands with him, to
exchange with him the passing word. And,
after all, in this brotherly intercourse of ours,
well as we think we know one another, how
much more than these fleeting intercommunica-
tions do we get ?

But this was not all. Underneath were the
structural honesty and integrity of the man.
He was worthy of the trusts reposed in him.
No evil was in his thought. He was an honor
to his native Ireland, the welfare of which was
close to his heart. He was a loyal citizen and
servant of our Commonwealth which he made
his home, and of the nation which he made his
own. He is an example to every aspiring young
man, whatever his race or circumstances, of
the value and fruit of an honest and true and
therefore of a happy life.

"Far may we search before we find
A heart so manly and so kind."

Green as the Emerald Isle forever be the turf
of Massachusetts above him!

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