The day's celebration was concluded by a dinner
of the Society. Dr. Hale spoke on this occasion
also. He said in part:

"Let us never forget that this is the monument of
a young man--that he is the young man's hero.
Let us never forget how the country then trusted
young men and how worthy they were of the trust.
It was at the very time of which I spoke that Washington
first knew Hamilton and asked him to his
tent. Hamilton had already won the confidence
of Greene. Hamilton was, I think, in his nineteenth
year. Knox, who commanded Hamilton's regiment,
was, I think, twenty-four. Webb, who commanded
Hale's regiment, was twenty-two. When,
the next year, Washington welcomed Lafayette,
whom Congress appointed major-general, he [Lafayette]
was not twenty. And Washington himself,
before whom others stood abashed, had only
attained the venerable age of forty-four. The
country needed her young men. She called for them
and she had them. It is one of those young men
who, dying at twenty-one, leaves as his only word
of regret that he has but one life to give to her."

Although it is now known that Hale was not
executed near City Hall Park, in some respects
there could be no more fitting location for a monument
to him than this, perhaps the busiest con-

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