The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1869-05-31

and hour, with new courage and high
purpose, go forward, onward and up.
ward in the amelioration of the condi-
ton of mankind.
Then indeed will we have highly re-
solved, "that these dead shall not have
died in vain; then indeed this nation,
| nnder God, will have had a new birth
| of freedom, and this our government
of the people, by the people and for the
people, will be the heritage of our chill
dren and the chosen of God"
Capt. Cochran was followed by Gov.
Stevenson.
Governor SteVensOn's Address.
Conmemorations Of great events are
common to all countries, and when In
tended to hold in remembrance the
deeds of those who have been the de.
tenders of liberty and the benefactors
of mankind, they make direct appeal
to the heart and bring into active life
the grandest and noblest feelings OF our
nature. Who don't look back with
exalted emotions through more than
six centuries to Runneymede andWind-
sOr Castle and the great Barons when
Magma Charta was wrested from the
unwilling hands of King John, or to
that still brighter epoch in the worlds
history when the fathers pledged their
lives, their fortunes and their honor to
the declaration that "all men are crea-
ted equal" But the soldiers whose
graves are decorated with flow ers to-
iay achieved the mightiest victory for
the human race recorded in the annals
of time, and their memory should be
cherished and will be. as long as the love
of liberty finds resting place in the
hearts OF men.
In other countries these public dem
onstrations are generally in honor of
some event in which the people have
10 1iff1o in
victory perhaps which snatched the
crown from the head of one tyrant only
to put it upon the head of another.
But the men whose memory we hon.
or to-day laid down their lives in de-
fence of flag under which all men
are free; a government within whose
broad domains, stretching from sea to
sea, the sun no longer shines upon the
castle of a tyrant nor the hut of slave.
The men who fell in the fierce
conflicts between the Wilderness
and Appomattox. or whose graves
march "from Chattanooga to the
sea" were martyrs not for this
country alone but for all countries and
all men, and these mounds of green
earth in this delightful spot, those in
the soldiers cemeteries OfGraftOn, Get.
tysburg and elsewhere the dead
around the stockades of Andersonville,
or the soldiers OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
the solitudes of deserts and mountains
over which, to-day, the wild flowers
bloom, attest with what unselhsh devo-
ton they gave all, even lite itself, for
the Republic and for man.
Theirs too, was devotion that never
faltered. There was a time, you my
fellow citizens all remember it well,
when the fortunes of war seemed
against us. The best men with gloomy
forebodings anxiously inquired of each
other, was our beloved land to be dis
membered? Were two rival empires
to exist side by side, where in the
nature of things 1t was clear there
should be but one? We were then in
the midst OF an awful strife. The doc
trine of secession had eliminated in
fierce civil war.
"The hand breadth cloud the sases saw.
Its bloody rain was dropping"
But it is matter of history that amid
all our reverses the soldier never lost
faith; to him it always seemed that
some how the old flag though 1t might
be torn to ribbons was to triumph IN
the end. The hour come when the tide
of fortune was to change, the country
could not endure longer the painful
suspense. The patient, forgiving, but
far seeing Abraham Lincoln, said to
the instigators of this bloody WORK. II
you are determined to make this fight
as to whether this nation is to live, or
slavery shall live by the destruction of
the government, then you had better
get slavery ready to die on short
notice." And it didn't take our
soldiers long to strike the letters 1S:
of human beings. Then it was sent
that the very spirit OF violence which
rebellion had invoked, rebounded, and
at single blow struck forever from
existence the very institution 1t was in |
tended TO perpetuate. The nation was
born again. Out OF this trtbulation,
this chaos Of war, God himself brought
deliverance, as from The darkness of
night he brings the morning star.
1t is we'll, my friends, we should re-
member that our duties do not end |
with ornamenting the graves or our de
parted soldiers. While hOnoring the |
dead let us not forget the living. This |
ceremony is worse than q mockery if
the soldiers widow is struggling with |
poverty, or his children are suffering |
for bread. 1t is cheap patriotism to
make speeches and sing anthems over
these handsfull of dust; but it costs
something to buy a barrel of flour for
destitute family and comfortable
clothing for shivering orphans. A pa
triOtism that can throw up Its nat ana
cheers Justify for the soldier is all very |
we'll, but If it does nothing more, 1t Is |
a very timber kind of patriotism-it
These men suffered severy privatlon,
faced death in every form, and at last
were cut down in the prime of manhood
tor you and for me, and II we neglect
the loved ones they have left behind
them, it will be reproRch that will
burn and blister and blacken upon the
fair fame OF every community guilty
of such shameful ingratitude.
It is right this should be one of our
national anniversary days. The flow
ers we scatter upon these graves Will
wither and die. but the return
ing spring will bring with 1t fresh
flowers. So in the hurry burly OF
life the r.collections of our soldiers
NAV fade from our memories, but
this returning celebration will ever re-
mind us that the brave men who follow
ed these torn and tattered flags when
treason plotted in darkness and the
sword wasted at monday, shall not
must not be forgotten.
AS general thing our soldiers were
poor men; they went into the service
poor men, and died In the service poor
men. But they have left TO us an |
inheritance that outwefghs the wealth |
of worlds-an undivided country-a
flag with mot single stripe erased nor |
a single star obscured." Gallant de. |
tenders of our homes, heroic boys in |
blue! who stood between the nation |
and death, can we do less at each
returning spring time, when the roses
bloom and the birds sing, than meet
together and drop tears and flowers
upon their graves, and teach our child |
rem through this simple ceremony to |