June 9, 1894 – The bronze statue “A Signal of
Peace” is unveiled in Lincoln Park before 2,000 people. The statue is a gift from Judge Lambert Tree,
a prominent judge of the Cook County Circuit Court who also served as the
United States ambassador to Belgium and Russia.
During the ceremony Lincoln Park Board President Crawford reads a letter
from Tree in which the judge states, “I fear the time is not distant when our
descendants will only know through the chisel and brush of the artist these
simple, untutored children of nature who were, little more than a century ago,
the only human occupants and proprietors of the vast northwestern empire of
which Chicago is now the proud metropolis.
Pilfered by the advance guards of the whites, oppressed by government
agents, deprived of their land by the government itself, with only scant
compensation; shot down by soldiery in wars fomented for the purpose of
plundering and destroying their race, and finally drowned by the ever westward
tide of population, it is evident there is no future for them, except as they
may exist as a memory in the sculptor’s bronze or stone and the painter’s
canvas.”
[Chicago Daily Tribune, June 10, 1894] President Crawford then accepts the gift and
the sculptor, C. E. Dallin, contributes brief remarks before he pulls a rope
that reveals his work, which rests atop a pedestal northwest of the great
equestrian statue of General Grant. For
more on Judge Lambert Tree and his gifts to Chicago you may refer to http://www.connectingthewindycity.com/2011/05/lambert-trees-gifts-part-one.html and http://www.connectingthewindycity.com/2011/05/tree-studios.html
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