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inanity. Until this moment, few among New York's swarm- 

 ing millions knew their names, fewer yet cared who they were. 

 But it is a pleasant duty imposed upon us to establish at this 

 spot a memorial tablet that shall be more enduring than mere 

 memory. 



" In days of old, when the great Oracle of Delphos spoke or 

 the Cumsean Sybil cast her oracular leaves before the King, 

 such sayings or script were handed down from generation to 

 generation with flawless accuracy by word of mouth,- for 

 script was rare and costly. To-day it squanders itself upon 

 a half-thinking world. To-day expressed thought is caught 

 in air and automatically recorded in enduring form. What 

 may be the methods of the future even our fancy cannot fore- 

 tell. For the time it contents us to do the best we can to 

 tempt the countless thousands who shall pass here in the 

 future to pause and give heed to the names and deeds of those 

 to whom they must ever be indebted for the enjoyment of this 

 green oasis in the City's desert of brick and stone. The gentle 

 the appreciative, will breathe a requiem for the repose of 

 the souls of such as John Mullaly, ' Father of the Bronx 

 Parks.' Could any title be nobler ? Time was when only the 

 Red Man roamed this place. To-day the millions are white 

 and black and from all nations. The Indian's reverent love 

 of the beautiful sanctified this spot and nature favored it with- 

 out cost. The hand of modern man and the wealth of mod- 

 ern purse must ever be employed to beautify and to pre- 

 serve it from the vandalism of the thoughtless and the 

 heartless. 



"To you, gentle givers of this tablet, the City of New 

 York, which gives me the prized honor of speaking for it, 

 extends its thanks — a brief word but meaning much. May 

 the example you set by your act to-day serve to inspire others 

 to unselfish deeds down through the years to come. May the 

 Creator forever grant peace to our City. May the City breed 

 noble chief magistrates. May such grant to you men of the 

 type of my brother Commissioner, Honorable Thomas Jef- 



