University of Virginia Library

1. Address by Senator Owen

Ladies and gentlemen: In this National Statuary Hall, containing the statues of the great men and women of the various States of the Union, Oklahoma presents to the United States this heroic statue of one of her most honored sons, Sequoyah, a native American--a Cherokee Indian--who was every inch a man and worthy to represent Oklahoma in the Capitol of the Nation.

Sequoyah had courage, generosity, perseverance, great industry, a wonderful intelligence, and, best of all, a strong desire to serve his fellow men. No man ever rendered a nobler or a better service to his people than did Sequoyah, who, out of a heaven-born genius, was able to invent a syllabic alphabet of 86 characters with which a Cherokee child might learn to read and write the Cherokee language within a day.

The 86 symbols of this alphabet were each a syllable, except the letter "S," and with these symbols every Cherokee word could be written.

Sequoyah spelled his name Se-quo-yah, with three syllabic symbols.

It was impossible to misspell words with this alphabet, and a Cherokee had but to know the alphabet in order to read anything written in Cherokee or to write anything in Cherokee.

This alphabet opened up to the Cherokee people the doors of knowledge without requiring them to go through the painful process of learning a foreign language.

The Cherokees, with elaborate ceremonies, did notable honor to Sequoyah as an expression of their appreciation of his masterful work. They presented him with a great silver medal in token of the esteem with which he was held by the Cherokee people, and passed resolutions in his honor.

The Cherokee Nation established a printing press, had type made, and printed the news of the day in the Phoenix and in the Cherokee National Advocate with Sequoyah's letters. They printed the laws in this language. They printed the Gospels and the New Testament and many other books useful and interesting to the Cherokee people, and in this way the Cherokee people made rapid advance in knowledge and in civilization.

Sequoyah could not read English. He used the letters of the English alphabet and of the Greek alphabet, and invented other letters of his own, to each one of which he gave a syllabic meaning. The framing of this alphabet showed a talent of the first magnitude.

It is a strange thing that no alphabet in all the world reaches the dignity, the simplicity, and the value of the Cherokee alphabet as invented by Sequoyah. The European alphabet goes too far in providing analysis of sound and permits such large variations in spelling that it is a task of years to learn how to spell correctly in any of the European languages. With the Sequoyah alphabet a Cherokee could learn to spell in one day.

Thus the labor of years was saved to the student. So great an intellectual accomplishment was this that Canon Kingsley named the great red cedars of California, which towered as high as 400 feet into the air and which were 25 feet through at the base, "Sequoias" because they were typical of the greatest native North American Indian.

It must not be imagined that Sequoyah was able to frame his alphabet in a few days or a few weeks. Sequoyah was a natural mechanic. He loved to build. He loved to draw and paint. He made himself, with the crudest appliances, the best silversmith in all the regions around, and he made himself a die representing his name in English which he printed on all the silverware made with his hands.

He finally determined to undertake the alphabet, and it was a continuous labor for over two years before he finally completed it and demonstrated its value by teaching the young people of his tribe to write and to read. It required, therefore, the most persistent, determined purpose, that would not consent to any denial, an inflexible resolution, patient thought, day after day and week after week; but his triumph was complete, a triumph of courage, determined purpose, continued intense thought.

When the State of Oklahoma came to choose the first statue to be presented to the Government from Oklahoma it chose Sequoyah almost without a dissenting voice, because of the heroic qualities of the man as a human soul, surrounded with difficulties, but overcoming every obstacle and rendering the most signal service any human being could render to his fellow men by opening the fields of all knowledge to his people through the invention of a perfect alphabet.

Oklahoma, when it determined to present the statue of Sequoyah, chose as the artist a woman greatly beloved in Oklahoma, Mrs. Vinnie Ream Hoxie, the wife of Gen. Richard Leveridge Hoxie, of Washington City. Vinnie Ream's people were closely identified with Oklahoma through Robert Ream, her brother, who lived in eastern Oklahoma, near McAlester. Her house in Washington was a rendezvous for many years for the best talent representing Oklahoma in Washington, but it was not her charm of manner, her great social talent, which led Oklahoma to place this commission in her hands. It was her magnificent ability as a sculptor of the first rank. After receiving the commission from Oklahoma to execute this work, failing health compelled her to seek the assistance of another artist, and as one great genius is able best to perceive the talent of another so she selected Mr. George Julian Zolnay, the eminent sculptor of Washington, trained in Vienna and Paris, and well known in New York, Chicago, and St. Louis, to take over and complete this labor, which, with Vinnie Ream, was a labor of love, for she always loved the Cherokees and the Indian people.

As to the splendid manner in which this work has been finally completed by Mr. Zolnay on the model outlined by Vinnie Ream, I think no one can raise a question. The nobility of the pose, its grace, its strength, the firm characteristic Cherokee Indian face, all show the highest form of human art.

Sequoyah is entitled to rank as the ablest intelligence produced among the American Indians, and Oklahoma takes pride in presenting to the Capitol of the United States this statue of Sequoyah in memory of an honored son of Oklahoma, a native American of the first rank, a man distinguished by the chief of all virtues--an earnest desire to serve his fellow men.

Without great opportunities, he made wonderful use of the small opportunities he had. In character, in nobility, in spiritual and mental worth he well deserves a place in the glorious company of Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building of the greatest Republic of the ages.

On behalf of Oklahoma and in the name of Hon. Robert L. Williams, governor of Oklahoma, acting for the State, I present this statue of Sequoyah to the Government of the United States and to Statuary Hall.