President's Message for Spring 2009

President, Melvin Mason

“Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.” – Sir William Gladstone; "Show me first the graveyards of a country and I will tell you the true character of the people." - Benjamin Franklin; “When a person is born, we rejoice. When they are married, we celebrate. When they die, we pretend nothing happened.” – Margaret Mead; "Go West, young man!" -  Horace Greeley (John Babson Lane Soule).

How do these sayings connect? They all speak to burial sites and society. They all speak to preserving society. The Gladstone and Franklin quote tells of how a society should treat their burial grounds. The Mead and Greeley quotes indicate how society reacts.

As a society we should respect and revere the sites where we bury our dead. In reality, today's society has evolved to the point where we pretend they have no graves and in our outward expansion, we abandon the sites of our ancestors for new or different homesteads.

Another quote that is bantered about on popular TV by the CSI crowd is that they "speak for the dead".

The question the Coalition is asking is, “Who speaks for the burial sites of the dead?”

As graveyards and burial grounds and cemeteries evolve and fill up, they often become neglected, abused, lost, and forgotten.

It is up to us to care for the dead, to present the true character, to ensure we know that something happened, and, in the ever moving society, we go west and remember what we left in the east.

We speak for the graves of the dead. We carry the torch to ensure the burial grounds are located, cataloged, and preserved.

We rely on individuals and groups of individuals to take up the mantle of cemetery protection. The Coalition will endeavor to provide guidance and resource assistance to those groups.

Let us all join together to prevent the wholesale destruction of these valuable societal resources by developers looking to maximize the commercial aspect of the ground; the wanton destruction of grave sites and markers  by vandals and hate mongers; the abandonment of care by uninterested caretakers or because the site is unprofitable.

The Coalition is not able to work directly in the sites, there are too many sites and too few of us. We can help those that want to step into the role of conservation and preservation of the sites with guidance and support we can offer.

Let them be not forgotten by our actions.

Melvin

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