Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-05-31

the good citizen, and a brief review of local
history, were the leading themes Of the adj
dress, which we are happy to be able to pun
fish in full
Gen Browns Grafton.
Comrades and Friends:
q Once more we meet to bear our part IN this
annual CONNIE orGtion. The time is well
chosen, the season is propitious. In this
northern latitude we see now the beginning of
new Summer. The renewal of the life and
beauty of Nature is the occasion of a renewal
of our memories and our VOWS. II is the time
of blossoming trees and fresh yerdure the air
Is full OF sweet odors and the happy songs of
birds. l trust that our souls are invigorated
by these glad influences, and that, though our
thoughts must be with the dead and our walk
to-day among their sacred graves, we perform
these tender offices with no idle complaining,
but rather with high hope for the future and
high resolve that the work which ceased for
them at the portals OF the tomb, shall be taken
up by US their survivors, ard carried on until
we too give place to those who to follow
in our steps. Those who die for their country
should not be forgotten by their countrymen.
The palms off the victors crown may fade, soon
er or later must be said "ashes to ashes, dust
to dust" but Honor does not die. the lustre of
great examples does not fade. In far distant
years the plough of the husbandman may turn
ats burrows where we stand these graves may
be forgotten, but the deeds of their silent oc.
cupants will have gone into history and the
sweet aroma of their sacrifices will last for
ever. AS we look about us it seems as if this
could scarcely be. Barely ten years have
passed since welcome Peace smiled upon the
land, and yet the hurry of these later days
has almost driven that time of rejoicing from
our minds the grass has grown green and
been cut down, the flowers have boomed and
withered, and once year we gather them and
strew them here. So recent the struggle. and
yet how remote. Young men walk our streets
in the full flush of manly ygor who only DIM
ly remember those days of gloom and glory.
Thousands of happy, laughing children at
the widowed mothers knee, look awe struck
at the relics on the wall, and ask for the
stories of that mysterious past. when the
father carried the sword or musket to the war,
the father whose grave, perchance, no one
knows, who when he said Good bye, kissed
with such love those baby lips, but never
came back for those baby eyes to see.
But to-day we bring this Past nearer to Us
we have turned aside from the crowded
thoroughfare of the worlds progress to wan
der among the graves of our comrades and
offer them our tribute, and pledge ourselves
again to their memory and their work not Us
alone, not here alone by this beautiful river,
but by thousands of others, beyond the hills to
the far north east beyond the mills to the dis
tant west, wherever wounded heart came
home to die, is this ceremony repeated,
wherever on the painful road he fell, some
hand to-day performs the sacred duty. Alas,
that SO many sleep we know not where. On
distant battle fields, in weary prisons and sad
hospitals their eyes caught the last glimpse
of the brightness of the sky, and now alone
the tender hand of nature decoratcs their un-
known graves.
The lesson of this day is plain. Choose
what subject you may, the thought will be
tinged with the color Of this beautiful memo
rial. The legacy of the patriotic dead is the
noble examples of their lives; the duty of the
living is to emulate that example and perfect
their work. Do what we may, this day must
be sacred to one topic; The tender memories
of the past; the solemn exigencies Of the
present the various possibilities Of the future.
When Leonidas and his Spartan band fell
at the pass of Thermopy9, their grateful
countrymen could invent filter epitaph
than this: ''They fell in obedience to the
laws" A simple sentence, bat it means much.
1t records an heroic sacrifice, "a forlorn hope,
without hope, it enunciatcs by inference a
profound truth a fundamental principle of
government, which is, that obedience TO the
laws is duty binding upon the citizen. even
unto death.
This we call loyalty, q subtle something
which in quiet times OF peace makes
one good citizen, but in war prompts him to
leave home and family and friends, and
dure priyations and brave death itself. The
word loyalty, however, is incomplete, and
may, as we use it, mean much or little. II
loyalty is based on conviction, and that con-
victon is the result of reason, faith, oduca-
ton, then it is indeed noble quality but if
it be blind. unreasoning, &C ting from impulse,
swayed by passion, then, though much good
result, much harm may follow. When revo-
buttons are justi6able, disloyalty is virtue.
Our government owes its origin to the dis
loyalty of our fathers, who rejected the laws
of their sovereign to make new laws for
themselves. The uprising of the north was
loyalty based on conviction In the south it
was prompted by disloyal demogogues, but
when the separation came, the great mass of
our antagonists, deceived by their leaders,
believing themselves oppressed, went into the
conflict and fought q noble fight to the / liter
end, actuated by as high a spirit of loyalty as
our own. l would not be misunderstood; the
war was cruel wrong, born in treason, car
ried on by misrepresentation and fraud, but
the vast mai ority of those who fought against
us were innocent of the fraud, and were loyal
to the only government their imperfect educa-
kion had permitted them to know. Those of
us who stood face to face with them should be
the last to doubt the sincerity OF their pur-
pose. The victors may honor the yanquished.
The tribunal is not here, but in the Heavens
and if on this day our dead lie side by side l
shall not regret that some scattered flowers
fall on the last earthly resting place of an
brring brother.
AS great wars pass out of our immediate
Jew into the domain Of history, there gathers
bver them the glamour of romance. The
,etty details, the dreary routine, the long days
# inactivity, the loneliness and homesck-
less, the dependency and dread are all for
Iotten. We think of the trumpet's sound,
he hot conflict, the huzza and victory. Is
here not danger in this, may we, who have
hese stirring memories, may we not eXagger-
to our own part, and SO do injustice to 9TH
rs who rendered the State no less service at
Iome? Is there not danger of forgetting our
nistakes, in our congratulaton upon Our sue
esses? The story of military achievements
as ring of pure metal in it, and sounds far
nd wide, but we should not let it drown the
raises of that less obtrusive loyalty which
atched and worked and waited by the de-
o.toI 6ras;d, of homo Tho xcArx Of the