Urbana union. [volume] (Urbana, Ohio) 1862-1872, 1867-07-17
@isfelIaay.
SOLDIERS OF VENGEANCE.

From the New York Tribune, July p
Mr.. Henry W. Bennett, of Davenport,
Iowa, sends US a respectful letter, and it
shall receive a respectful reply. We
had occasion some days since, while com
menting upon the meeting of Congress,
to speak our minds of an association
known as "The Grand Army Of the Re
public" We spoke with severity, be-
cause we felt the occasion had arrived
for q severe expression of opinion. We
understand the Grand Army of the Re-
public to be secret society, composed
| Of persons calling themselves discharged
soldiers of the army, with the purpose of
taking part in politics. Mr.. Bennett
rather denies this, but We are not salts
fed with his denial. We scarcely ever
can take up a certain class Of Western
papers without finding that some "Post'
! of the G. A. R. has had meeting, and
resolved that everything is going wrong,
and that nothing will go right until
some one is hanged, and everybody has
a eonfscated farm.
In the first place, we call this organ
ization unrepublican. Secret associ-
ations for social purposes, to aid nchar-
ity, or to develop virtue or friendship,
are very well. They rarely interfere
with any body. If people find amuse-
ment in meeting in guarded rooms, and
wearing spangied dresses, and calling
themselves sachems, and brothers, and
comrades, soldiers of Gideon, and sons
of Rechab, it is their own business
We may doubt their taste, but mans
taste concerns only himself. Sometimes
we have vistaGes of the Orange senti-
ment in ireland in Protestant associa-
tions, who meet and swear by the i'm
mortal memory Of King William, and
VOW towalk knee-deep in Catholic blood;
Such VOWS are harmless figures of speech,
so long as the police are about. On the
other hand, we hear Of other societies
who propose to re establish the Catholic
/ Church, and scatter confusion among
| the Protastants. In America, however,
these maledictions are merely rhetorical.
! The Catholic and Protestant Churches
still live and flourish. We had Fenian-
/ ism and Know-Nothingism. The one is
dead as an active power, the other has
| long since departed In the war there
were Sons of Liberty and knights Of the
Golden Circle-but their glory was for
day, and it faded ike the flowers OF
the field. When a secret society goes
beyond the Offices of charity and friend
ship, it takes no root in America.
This Grand Army of the Republic
proposes, according to Mr.. Bennett, to
renew associationsformed amid the roar
of artillery, the lightning Of battle, and
the thunder of victory" We fear that
Mr.. Bennett but half states his case.-
The memories of the recent war are no
doubt very high and holy. There is
something sacred in the cOmradeship
which drank from the same canteen.-
We can understand with what lusty
grasp the comrades of the mess would
meet in civil life. If this were all we
should be content; but it is not all
These men combine for political pur,
poses. They propose to keep alive the
wrath and bitterness of that dreadful
time. They mean to control cOnven-
tions to nominate men for ofice-to per
petuate in our civil system the bitterness
of war. We believe the soldier should
receive abundant reward. When a sol
der and civilian apply for Office, all
things being equal, we should prefer the
soldier. But we dislike this making a
privileged class, and especially we dis
like this getting into a corner and hay-
ing passwords and grips, and making
an exclusive class.
Washington foresaw this when he op-
posed the Society Of the Cincinnati. He
saw in the association the first step to-
ward an aristocracy, and he declined to
ally himself with it. What Washing
ton said should be remembered now
Here is an association more numerous
and more powerful than the Cincinnati
which proposes to ever keep alive a wal
with brothers and w-countrymen
TO exult in victories over Americans, tC
rejoice over the destruction Of men il
whose blue veins run the blood which
courses in our own, and who, whatever
their crimes or errors, are of our owl
country, We say, let all the momorie:
of the past sink into the hell to which
they belong let us think only of the
wounds to be healed, Of haryests to grow
again, Of seas once more covered witt
our commerce, education for the igno
rant, protection to the oppressed, justice
to ALL