Excerpt from Addresses at the Unveiling of the Bust of Matt W. Ransom, by the North Carolina Historical Commission in the Rotunda of the State Capitol at Raleigh: Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, January 11, 1911

The State Historical Commission has invited you to join in celebrating an important event in the historical activities of the State.

It has long been a reproach' to North Carolinians that we have been careless of the memories of our great men. As a State, we have always been poor, but we have been rich in men - high-minded men, who knew how to do and die if nec essary, in the crises that confronted them.

We have been proud of our State, proud of her achieve ments and her traditions. We have gloried in hearth-stone tales of former generations, only to forget them in the busy struggles of life. We have written little and preserved even less, largely because we had no depositories for the safe keep ing of our records. We are the beneficiaries of the con structive statesmanship of the past, but in many cases the bodies of those devoted spirits whose deeds should be a glorious heritage to our people lie in unknown graves, their fame consigned to oblivion, their services unrecorded.

We, in our generation, have been following the example Of past generations who have forgotten, to be in turn forgot ten. But a change is now coming over the spirit of our people.

The State is beginning to realize that conserving the fair renown of her own great sons is her sacred duty.

The North Carolina Historical Commission was created in 1903, and its duties and powers greatly enlarged in 1907. The work of the Historical Commission has not been confined to the duties required of it by the law creating it, but in the last two years its activities have been varied. It has classified.

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