The title of "First Defenders" has been given to the five companies of Pennsylvania troops, two of which were from Schuylkill Co., one from Reading, one from Allentown, and one from Lewistown, Pa., that marched through Baltimore on the day before the Massachusetts soldiers were mobbed in the streets on the way to defend the national capital. After running the gauntlet of a furious rabble, the five companies reached Washington on the evening of the 18th, and were quartered in the Capitol Building. A pool of blood, which ran from the wounded cheek of "Nick" Biddle, marked the spot on the Capitol floor, where he lay that night. It was the first blood shed in the war for the Union. His grave is in the colored churchyard in Pottsville, Pa.

The grave of "Nick" Biddle a Mecca should be,

To Pilgrims who seek in this land of the free,

The tombs of the lowly as well as the great,

Who struggled for freedom in war or debate;

For there lies a black man distinguished from all

In that his veins furnished the first blood to fall

In war for the Union, when traitors assailed

Its brave "First Defenders," whose hearts never quailed.

The eighteenth of April, eighteen sixty-one,

Was the day "Nick" Biddle his great laurels won,

In Baltimore city, where riot ran high,

He stood by our banner to do or to die;

And onward, responsive to liberty's call—

The Capital City to reach ere it fall.

Brave Biddle with others as true and as brave,

Marched through the wild tempest, the nation to save.

Their pathway was fearful, surrounded by foes,

Who strove in fierce madness their course to oppose;

Who hurl threats and curses defiant of law,

And think by such methods they may overawe

The gallant defenders, who nevertheless

Hold back their resentment as forward they press,

And conscious of noble endeavor, despise

The flashing of weapons and traitorous eyes.

Behold now the crisis! The mob thirsts for blood!

It strikes down "Nick" Biddle, and opens the flood;

The torrents of crimson from hearts that are true,

That shall deepen and widen, shall clean and renew,

The land of our fathers by slavery cursed.

The blood of "Nick" Biddle—yes, it is the first,

The patter of raindrops presaging the storm,

That will rage and destroy till the nation reform.

How strange, too, it seems that the Capitol floor,

Where slave-holders sat in the Congress of yore,

And forged for his kindred chains heavy to bear,

To bind down the black man in endless despair,

Should be stained with his blood, and thus sanctified,

Made sacred to Freedom, through time to abide,

A temple of justice, with every right

For all of the nation—black, red men and white.

The grave of "Nick" Biddle, though humble it be,

Is nobler by far in the sight of the free

Than tombs of those chieftains whose sinful crusade,

Brought long years of mourning, and countless graves made;

In striving to fetter their black fellow-men,

And make of the Southland a vast prison pen,

Their cause was unholy, but "Nick" Biddle was just—

And hosts of pure spirits watch over his dust.

Deeds are indestructible; ideas are imperishable, and mind is immortal. "Children," says George Eliot, "may be strangled, deeds never; they have an indestructible life, both in mind and outside of our consciousness." It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that many of the ancients of the distant past should have predicated eternal life upon deeds and ideas. Deeds which are formidable, and ideas which grow and expand, and gather strength, until they become the very life of the social, moral and religious structure of the nation. To my mind there can be no truer measurement of a man, or a race, or a nation, than the standard of ideas which formulate themselves into deeds. "Deeds and ideas," which, according to Disraeli, "render a man independent of his constituencies, independent of dissolution, independent even of the course of time."

Measure from this standard Theodore Roosevelt, the President of the United States of America, is the most unique figure before the American people to-day. No President since the days of Lincoln, the emancipator, merits in a larger degree the unselfish praise and devotion, not only of his countrymen, but of the whole civilized world. In the strictest sense of the term, he is a man of destiny. Born, like all true leaders and reformers, at a particular time, for a particular purpose; endowed by nature with a constitution which defies the encroachment of disease; with an intellect which craves the most rigid discipline; with a courage which knows no daring, and a conscience which repels the slightest innovation which might result to the detriment of his fellow-man, regardless of race, color or creed. It was for Abraham Lincoln to issue the proclamation of freedom, and thus save the nation from disintegration; it is for Theodore Roosevelt to preserve that proclamation, and preserve the amendments to the Constitution, which is the very life of the freedom guaranteed to the emancipated. From the time of President Grant down to the present time, there has been a persistent attempt on the part of the South to paralyze the spirit and practice of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, without which freed men would have no legal standing in the nation.

The amendments received a dangerous wound during the administration of President Hayes. From the effects of this wound it hardly ever recovered. When, by a strange Providence, Theodore Roosevelt was called suddenly to occupy the place of the martyred President McKinley, a most lovable and peaceful man, black men and their friends, all over the country, rejoiced in the hope of a better day, when right and justice would succeed policy and conciliation. In this we were not mistaken. Not that Theodore Roosevelt loves the black man any more than any of his predecessors, but that Theodore Roosevelt has convictions and the courage of his convictions, regardless of consequences. The appended correspondence, which explains itself, will render him immortal, and will keep his memory fresh in the recollection of his fellow-men, and when future historians chronicle his acts, they shall speak of him as "Theodore, the Great and the Good."