[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 103 (Tuesday, June 13, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E551-E552]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      RECOGNIZING WILLIAM GOULD IV

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 13, 2023

  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to include in the Record the remarks 
of my constituent, William B. Gould IV, Professor Emeritus at Stanford 
Law School, at the unveiling of a statue of his great-grandfather who 
escaped slavery to serve in the Navy during the Civil War.

Unveiling of the Statue of William B. Gould [1837-1923]: The Flame Kept 
                                 Alive


 Delivered by William B. Gould IV, Gould Park--Dedham, Massachusetts, 
                              May 28, 2023

       On behalf of the entire Gould Family on this 100th 
     commemoration of William B. Gould's death here in Dedham, 
     today I express our thanks to Dedham's citizens who made this 
     day possible. Specifically, Joe Castiglione, Voice of the 
     Boston Red Sox and my friend for nearly forty years, for his 
     kindness in accepting this position as Master of Ceremonies 
     of this event.
       And I thank Father Wayne L. Belschner of St. Mary's Roman 
     Catholic Church which William B. Gould helped construct in 
     the 1880s. I shall never forget your eloquent and vivid 
     speech 18 months ago here in Dedham about him and his work 
     and I thank you for it.
       And thank you Father Chitral De Mel, Rector of the Church 
     of the Good Shepard here, where we attended the Eucharist 
     this morning and where the first four of the six William 
     Benjamin Goulds were baptized.
       Penultimately, thank you Pablo Eduardo for your fine 
     artistry in sculpting this statue of my great-grandfather.
       Finally. I thank Brian Keaney, who along with Dan Hart, and 
     so many others here in Dedham discovered William B. Gould 
     three years ago and set in motion a chain of events which 
     have led to this day.
       ``Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song'' 
     writes Henry C. Work when he wrote Marching Through Georgia 
     which my father sang to us so often in our New Jersey 
     household.
       ``Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along--
     Sing it as we used to sing it, fifty thousand strong, While 
     we were marching through Georgia.''
       These words, sung with gusto by my father, along with the 
     Battle Hymn of the Republic, have been with me since 
     childhood and throughout my three decade long search for my 
     great grandfather, gone from this world thirteen years before 
     my birth.
       As we arrived in Boston a few days ago after a visit to 
     Savannah, Georgia, I thought anew about those days, 
     reflecting upon General Sherman's great ``march to the sea'' 
     when ``treason fled before us'' as the United States marched 
     through Georgia and presented a Christmas present of Savannah 
     to President Lincoln.
       Two decades ago, when some of the Gould Family traveled to 
     Wilmington, North Carolina, William B. Gould's birthplace and 
     the

[[Page E552]]

     site of his audacious escape from slavery to join the United 
     States Navy in the War of the Rebellion, we noted the absence 
     of any statues for the Black veterans of that conflict. 
     Contrarily, we noted the many Confederate statues throughout 
     the country, a phenomenon made graphic today as some have 
     been pulled down, relocated or destroyed. In Wilmington in 
     2003 I said:
       ``. . . There is little or no mention or acknowledgment of 
     the black military involvement in this effort, the ``holiest 
     of all causes'' as William B. Gould called it, to obtain the 
     New World's central political and legal achievement.''
       Statues cannot be viewed as neutral and they do not exist 
     in a vacuum. They project the memories of the past and the 
     values associated with them. Their oldest confirmed examples 
     of stone and portrait are said to be before recorded history, 
     35,000 to 45,000 years ago. When the time capsules contained 
     within this statue are opened, one hundred and two hundred 
     years from now, it may be that William B. Gould's values, 
     expressed in war and in peace here in Dedham, will in some 
     way shape or promote the discussions of future generations.
       Of course. it was my father. William B. Gould III, raised 
     here on the Boston-Dedham boundary line, who truly lit the 
     spark for this day. It was he who bequeathed the cadence of 
     the Civil War, its' principles. music, literature and 
     knowledge of its military battles as part of our upbringing. 
     It was he who found the diary itself here in Dedham. It was 
     he who manifested an ever courteous reverence toward my great 
     uncles who had fought in France in World War I. It was he who 
     kept the name alive.
       On this Memorial Day weekend, we remember the first William 
     B. Gould's service to the United States and his well-written 
     words at sea in 1865. ``We were born under the Flag of the 
     Union and we never will know no other.'' he said in response 
     to ideas which abounded before and during the War about Black 
     colonization in Africa, while pursuing Confederate vessels 
     near Southampton, Great Britain. ``My sentiment is the 
     sentiment of the people of the states'', he said. And for my 
     great grandfather, this flag was the ``Flag of Right'' and 
     ``the Flag of Equality.''
       This day marks honor for that commitment and for those 
     previously forgotten. For until my father discovered the 
     diary and the citizens of Dedham took notice of it three 
     years ago, William B. Gould had been forgotten. To be 
     forgotten was illustrative of what I described a number of 
     years ago, i.e., ``. . . the old order against which my 
     parents had struggled. In their day the struggle was against 
     hopeless odds--hopeless because all who possessed African 
     blood were isolated, ridiculed, despised--and thus regarded 
     as unfit for occupations and work that the white man was 
     willing to perform.'' It was the forgotten who, in the words 
     of the Book of Common Prayer, ``travail'' and are ``heavy 
     laden.'' This is what William B. Gould had in mind when, in 
     his diary, he railed against the tearing of ``benighted 
     Africans'' from their ``loved homes on the free plains of 
     Africa's shores'' to be ``transferred to the Wilderness of 
     America so that they would become ``. . . the Hewers of the 
     Wood and Drawers of Water to clear their Land, to Build their 
     Cittys and feed their Mouths?''
       I cannot speak for what William B. Gould would say about 
     the current discussion and debate on recompense or 
     reparations and what form, if any, they should take. But 
     today we can experience firsthand the exhilaration of victory 
     at sea as well as on land, the conclusion of what, in his 
     Second Inaugural Address President Lincoln called ``the 
     bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil'' 
     and ``every drop of blood drawn with the lash.''
       In 2023, these wounds still exist in our country today more 
     than one hundred and sixty years after William B. Gould's 
     service. For his generation of family and war comrades, who 
     were ever devoted to full freedom and equality, surely today 
     he would want us to repair the inequality in our country, as 
     he did through his work, with great care and honesty. As St. 
     Mary's parishioners know today, he was a smart, capable and 
     practical craftsman who worked with his mind as well as his 
     hands. He would be, as he was then, promoting that which is 
     compatible with Lincoln's overriding goal to ``bind up the 
     nation's wounds'' so that we may live with equity in dignity 
     with respect for one another.
       Thank you. Dedham, Massachusetts, for this honor to William 
     B. Gould. God bless you in your efforts to reflect upon the 
     past and affect the future.

                          ____________________