Remember Cliffside

Address by Hon. Clyde R. Hoey - 3

In 1836 Pushmatahaw, a great Indian warrior from the West went to Washington city in order that he might pay a last visit to General LaFayette. This Indian warrior was described by General Jackson to be the greatest and bravest Indian he ever knew. While on this visit to LaFayette, Pushmatahaw fell desperately ill and called his tribesmen around his bedside, and warned them that his spirit would soon pass to the Happy Hunting Ground. He said to them: “When you go back to our loved Indian nation, they will ask you, 'Where is Pushmatahaw?' You will say to them, 'He is no more' and this news to them will be as a sound of the falling of a mighty oak in the stillness of the forest.”

“...we may imagine that his good, gray eyes look down from the ramparts of Heaven in contentment and satisfaction upon the completion of this magnificent structure and its presentation to the people with whom he labored so long and whom he loved so well.”

In February, 1917, from the soft, southerly, flowery shores of Florida, there came to Cliffside and Rutherford county and North Carolina the message that Raleigh Haynes was no more, and that message was like the noise of the falling of a mighty oak in the stillness of the forest; and it brought to you and to me the full realization that a man in whom all the virtues and attributes of the model citizen flowered had fallen and that his passing would leave a place unfilled in our community life and in the circle of friendship.

In a few minutes we shall be permitted to inspect this memorial building which is to serve this community as its welfare building and to commemorate the fine virtues of the founder of this community. I know that you rejoice with me in the generosity of this company in donating this building, but our thought tonight shall be not of the building, but of the man in whose memory and honor it is erected, and we may imagine that his good, gray eyes look down from the ramparts of Heaven in contentment and satisfaction upon the completion of this magnificent structure and its presentation to the people with whom he labored so long and whom he loved so well.

It was Kipling who said:

“When earth's last picture is painted
      And the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colors have faded
      And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it;
      Lie down for an eon or two,
Till the Master of all good workmen
      Shall put us to work anew.

And those who are good shall be happy;
      They shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten league canvas
      With brushes of comet's air.
They shall find real saints to draw from—
      Magdalene, Peter and Paul.
They shall work for an age at a sitting
      And never grow tired at all.

And only the Master shall praise us
      And only the Master shall blame,
And no one shall work for money,
      And no one shall work for fame
And each for the joy of the working
      And each in his separate star
Shall draw the thing as he sees it,
      For the God of things as they are.”

Shall we not remember tonight that every man and every woman and every boy and every girl is fashioned in the image of the Almighty and bears the stamp of his divine personality. Realizing our exalted creation, shall we not undertake to appropriate the fine ideals and conceptions of service which were illustrated in the life of this community benefactor, and shall we not endeavor to live worthy of the fine provision which has been made by an all wise Creator for us, and whose plans have been furthered by the men and women who have gone before us and who have worked willingly in obedience to the great spirit of service and sacrifice which has characterized the lives of men like Raleigh Haynes. May I bespeak a double portion of his spirit for the young men and young women of this community that they may serve as faithfully as he.

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Reprinted with permission from The Daily Courier. Copyright owned by The Daily Courier.