THE BUILDER JANUARY 1925

The Grave of Brother Lafayette

BY BRO. ED TOWSE, HONOLULU, HAWAII

IT was one of the dozens of Sunday mornings that the sharp bow,
high white sides and revised masts of the U.S.F.S. Philadelphia
rested big and bright from the wharves of Honolulu. The handsome
unit of "white squadron" architecture was a striking picture from
Punchbowl, from Roundtop, Tantalus or Konahuanui, or from beneath
the palms at Waikiki beach. Capt. Henry Cochrane, U.S.M.C. (later
major with a Spanish War record), had seated himself with his
guests in the shade of the shelter of one of the heavy pieces of
the port battery. It was near the gangway. Out on the other side we
looked upon the odd little lighthouse, with the reef and surf and
sea beyond. Along the opposite bend of the bay were the homes of
the local boat clubs--Myrtles, Healanis, Leilanis, Alohas. The
young men were getting out shells and barges or were lounging or
swimming. From a small wharf native men and women with shouts and
laughter were making running jumps into the bay.

Solely for the purpose of drawing out the veteran officer, one of
his party had remarked that for even, full grace and genuine
general charm the Hawaiian half-caste woman was the superior of the
daintiest thoroughbred of any kind or clime.

Just then a sergeant of marines, a fine, soldiery fellow,
approached to make a report to his commander. As the man left the
captain began:

"That fellow is the complete ideal of a living Bertie Cecil.
stepped from Ouida's Under Two Flags. He's a marine and was with me
in Paris."

Capt. Cochrane had a detail of thirty-two United States marines at
the Eiffel Tower Exposition.

I asked the captain what sort of a showing they made with samples
of the other armies and navies. The captain now became unreserved,
fluent and earnest; here is what he said, and how:

"They were the best looking, best drilled, best dressed, best
behaved, best paid, best fed and most intelligent lot of enlisted
men there. Their allowance made them princes among their associates
and I was proud of them and our country and its soldiery. Every
wealthy American who saw them made them a present. They were in
clover all the time and had furloughs and half a dozen honorable
mentions in orders when they came home. I have a picture of the
company taken at the grave of Lafayette.

"It is certainly pardonable that I plume myself upon having
instituted the custom of decorating the grave of Lafayette on the
Fourth of July.


"Some sort of a patriotic inspiration suggested the plan to me.
This was in the month of April. I, of course, thought of May 30 as
the appropriate day for the ceremony. Mr. Whitelaw Reid, then our
envoy to France, was at once enthusiastic. He said he knew a
Lafayette, a bachelor member of the deputies. or some other
legislative body.

"Mr. Reid, certain that his acquaintance was a relative of the man
who made France and America such great friends, at once dictated a
letter to him, setting forth fully the plan and indicating a day
and hour at which both of us would call.

"When we made the visit we were kept waiting perhaps an hour, when
one of the most delightful of old gentlemen came in and offered in
excellent English the excuse of detention on public business. Very
pleasantly did he entertain us. He was the only living male
descendent of the companion of Washington.

"His widowed sister and her daughter were mentioned with the
assurance that they would co-operate in the proposed exercises. M.
Lafayette, on condition that we should assume entire control and
direction and the management of all details. consented to make an
address in English.

"Mr. Reid was quite busy at this time and assigned me to the
executive work, which included enlistment of a committee of
prominent Americans. This was no trouble at all. Then. about May 5,
I set out to have a look at the grave of Lafayette and mark a line
of march and parade position.

"It was a most astonishing thing, but an actual fact, that no one
seemed to know where the remains of this noble and famous man had
been placed. I hunted for days, being aided by volunteers and paid
men. Mr. Reid communicated officially with the Government and we
learned that his inquiry was being referred from one bureau to
another.

"Near the end of May all of us were well nigh hopeless. Then one
day I ran across a young American resident who was married to a
French woman. He was from Philadelphia, but was at home enough in
Paris and with the language to be a very successful professional
guide. Well, he knew where Lafayette's grave was.

"He was a Freemason, was intimately acquainted with the
circumstances of the visits of Lafayette to his own lodge and that
of Washington at Alexandria, Va. This guide told me that I might
have made the quest simplicity itself by consulting members of the
Supreme Council of Thirty-third Degree Scottish Rite Masons of
France or any brother of a subordinate body of that great
organization. He began to describe the location of the grave, but
I took him right along with me.

"The tomb, very simply inscribed, was in a small cemetery in one of
the most interesting sections or districts of old Paris. Near it
was a large cemetery where there had been interred 1,300 victims of
the Reign of Terror. This was told in a few lines on a
weather-beaten sign over the broken gate. Overlooking both of these
burial grounds was a convent made famous in Victor Hugo's Les
Miserables. One could study French history and literature in that
vicinity for a month.

"May 30 was now an impossible date for the ceremony and we fixed
upon July 4. There was quite a gathering, though there was no
intent to make it a general affair. We raised the Stars and Stripes
and fired a salute. Then my men stacked arms and fell out. The
color sergeant laid his flag on top of the rifles. The sister and
niece of M. Lafayette, who were dressed in black, walked over to
the line of arms, gently lifted a fold of Old Glory and kissed it
reverently. That was a sweet and simple tribute to the United
States and all were affected.

"The floral offerings included some that I knew to be Masonic and
of the Scottish Rite. There was a beautiful cross of red roses, a
triangle with a Hebrew character in the center and an elaborate
piece with a monogram displaying the letters 'L.F.E.' These, I was
told, were for the initials of the words 'Liberty, Fraternity,
Equality.' They surmounted the figures 33. Each Freemason present
joined in a procession around the grave and at the final encircling
of it dropped a sprig of green at the head.

"M. Lafayette's speech was a success beyond our most sanguine hopes
excepting, perhaps, the very last sentence.

"He spoke of our country and his own, of our immortal forefather
and of his own great ancestor, of our President and his President,
of Mr. Reid and myself and of the occasion.

"Then came his peroration and his accident from lack of practice
with English. As nearly as I can recall, he said:

"'It is peculiarly fitting that this recognition of the
distinguished son of such a thriving, busy Republic as France has
become, should be at the hands of citizens of that great model and
time-tried Republic, that country of brave and brilliant and
generous men, that country of such grand institutions and complete
liberty, that country which leads the entire world in the march of
scientific, mechanical and intellectual-mte-lectual-ah-ah go head.'

"Of course 'achievement' was the word he was after. The Americans
repressed their laughter and were ready with compliments to the
speaker. A few evenings later most of us met him at dinner and he
then told the joke on himself. The custom of remembering
Lafayette's grave continues and I hope it endure."

Afterwards Capt. Cochrane told of witnessing a Russian coronation
and his recital of seeing two men guillotined in Paris gave at
least one of his hearers more thrills than several legal hangings
and a halfdozen lynchings witnessed in the Rocky Mountain country.

