The Birdland Address

One score and three years ago an unknown force brought forth in the deep south, a new Birdland savior, conceived miraculously to a bat and glove, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are less equal than he.

Now we are engaged in a terrible war, testing the PHN, or MFY, and the Rays formerly known as Devil, that will end their reigns. We are met on a great path of bases of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of the path between first and second, but closer to second, as a final resting place for those who are less powerful than Wieters, every challenger. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we will not dedicate -- will not consecrate -- will not hallow -- this ground. The "speedy" men, all dead, who struggled here, thought they were far above his  power only to be gunned down. The world will long remember what he says and does here, and will never forget what they tried here. It is for he, The Wieters, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who floundered under PA have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great Wieters -- that from these dead, victims of the cannon, we take increased delight in the ineptitude that led them to the last full attempt of thievery -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall have died in vain -- that Birdland, under Wieters, shall have a new birth of winning -- and that the League of America shall not perish to the likes of PHN or MFY ever again.