ON THE DEATH OF LOUIS KOSSUTH[1]
(1894)
Born in 1846; of a family long distinguished in public affairs in Hungary; for many years leader of the National party in Hungary; President of the Hungarian House of Representatives in 1903; Delegate to the Interparliamentary Conference in London in 1906.
We have to speak in the name of a mourning nation before a world filled with emotional sympathy. Who is the man who, after half a century's absence, holds just the same place in the heart of his people as when he was its ruler? Who is the man to whom all nations pay a tribute of respect such as no material power can command, poor outcast tho he was?
Who was Louis Kossuth?
This question is being answered now. The features of the living are obscured by the mist of controversy; in its shadows we perceive but the flickering lamplight of transient opinion. But there comes the sharp wind of death; it dispels the mist; it blows out the lamps; the sun of history is rising. In the clearness of that
- ↑ Delivered in the Hungarian House of Representatives, at Budapest, on March 23, 1894. At the conclusion of his speech, Count Apponyi moved a series of resolutions, providing for a public burial of Kossuth and for the erection of a statue to him. Translated for this collection by Count Apponyi himself in August, 1906, after his return to Hungary from the London Conference of the Interparliamentary Union.
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