The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-07-05
yesteydav,s Demonstration.

How eloquent was the language OF the flags
yesterday Gathered from a thousand glorious
battle-helds mementoes of thousand terrible
conflicts perforated, tattered, torn, mangled,
blood-stained-how they spoke TO eye and heart
as no voice of silver-tongued orator or pen of
ready writer could do! Alas for the fallen
heroes !-"the three hundred thousand COOL and
tried"-who once followed those flags with high
hope, brave resolve and patriotic devotion, but
whose ears are now deaf to trumpets clangor
or cannon's boom, and whose graves are scat
tered over many distant plains, on the lonely
mountains side, in the wilderness, on the wild
prairie's bosom, or in the depths of the forest
and the morass How shall we ever pay the
debt we owe TO the men who gave their lives
Tor the country? Their orphans we're with us
yesterdaY-b bright, sturdy boys, and sweet-faced
girls-a lovely group of children, of whom the
State ought to be proud, and who ought to be
the objects of her tenderest solicitude and most
affectionate care.
And who, without emotion, could look upon
the soldiers themselves, yesterday survivors of
so great a war, actors in scenes that will be so
immortal in the pages of history! Menu like
ourselves, it is true, and yet men who have
faced death in thousand appalling forms. 1t
is easy to talk about but they who did it deserve
our lasting honor and our perpetual praise.
There too were some of our great officers
MEADE, the hero of Gettysburg, that Waterloo OF
the ReDellon; HANCOCK, the very beau ideal of
q soldier, renowned upon almost every great
battlefield OF the war; HOWARD our American
HAvELoCK, and GEARY, leader OF the White Star
Division both highly distinguished on many
bloody fields, and both conspicuous in that great
march from the mountains to the sea: besides
many others whom time and space would fail us
to mention IN detail, but whose names and
deeds will find an honorable place upon the
scroll of history. 1t was a feast to the eyes to
behold so many of these gallant men together.
As we turn from the solemn pageantry of the
scene which transpired before our eyes yester-
day, how can we help asking, What was all this
great and memorable struggle really for? Was
there no vital principle at the bottom of it?
Did no living idea inform it? Had it no mean
ing Was it merely that set of vile traitors
might be reclothed with political power? Was
That all? If so, then we have made a great
waste of treasure and blood, and may well
write ooh lame and impotent conclusion" over
all our labors. But it is not so. There was but
one cause worthy of the magnificent struggle,
and that was the cause of human liberty as
bound up in the integrity and perpetuity of our
Government. Take that idea from the contest,
and it was vain and ignoble sacrifice of SUBJ
stance and OF life.
The sound of battle has ceased. We have
gathered up the fragments. The torn standards,
the bloody banners, the SCARED ensigns the
flying flags have at last all been folded up and
laid away. But forget not, oh brave men,
valiant and faithful, that the conflict OF ideas
still RACES. The fruits of our victories in the
field must be defended at the ballotboX, or they
will turn to dust and ashes upon our lips