Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1882-09-22


chosen chieftain. yet the nation has outlived
| the blow. Away. then. with that miserable
and effeminate disposition, that sees oul
future only in black colors. Because shame
less, buccaneering plunderers sometimes gel
into high stations and pilfer from the public
till and rife its Golfers; or because some
superlative committee idiot brays like wild
ass of the plains, as he howls fol
political assessments: or because vision
ary members of Congress. believing in
shoveling clean the treasury. as there
are millions in it," under the delu-
sion that risky and enthusiastic engineer
can make a commercial highway where na-
ture has interposed her fat to the contrary
tor this we have oracles of despair who out
rival ancient Jeremiah as they prognosticate
our certain and overwhelming ruin.
In the blaze of events showing to US a
formidable rebellion crushed. pointing TO
order maintained when earthquakes of CON-
motion threatened to rend the civil compact
by treachery, testing to the utmost by the
strain of exigency on. constitutional system,
let US cry hush to the craven fear that
asserts our incapability to master the
corruption of our political knaves,
or to checkmate the imbecility of our public
folly. Above the lamentations of pesslmists,
lei US listen to the ringing words of Whittier.
as the serene and almost sanity poet of free
dom sings:
1--WE have q country vet.
The praise . Lord, be thine alone,
Who gavest not for bread stone
Thou hast not led us through the night,
To blind with returning light.
Not through the furnace have We passed,
To perish at its mouth at last"
This monument, faultless as a work of art.
built by the generosity of willing hands and
loving hearts and dedicated in sight of many
thousands of citizens, should be a perpetual
rebuke to those who cavil about or crOaK over
our impending dangers. This monument is
not raised to ornament heeting political
shadow or crumbling fabric of govern
ment. 1t is raised to add its weight
of confidence in the best country and govern
ment on earth, country and government
whose course of greatness and whose meas
ure of national purity and perfection are but
begun. This monument is placed here to
extol the fact that these men of Augusta did
not suffer nor die for naught,w when they de-
voted their very existence to the noblest mil
itary contest of which the human race can
boast.
For no barren project of local vanity, not
for the revival of the traditions of combats of
slaughter on hostile fields, but to immortalize
patriots and patriotism do We, this day, in
sober deineanOr, with serious thought and
with reverent words bequeath to succeeding
generations this gift Of the loyal living in re-
niembrance Of the loyal dead. great
Union soldier once said "Forgiving the past
but not forgetting it. we will cherish the
memories of the war forever" That with us
is q universal sentiment for we have nothing
save our religion, that is purer or loftier to
cherish than the memories of the war. At
N
niversaries reserved to decorate the final rest
ing place of soldiers and monuments erected
in their esteem, tend to keep slive the rec
objections of the civil war. Thank God
those recollectious are aud are to be kept
alive. Alas for the American nation when
it no longer thrills with conscious pride to
the memories of its grandest hour. 1t would
be criminal SANDER on human nature to i'm
pute Indifference on our part to the men who
made us what we are.
Whittier for the fires that strove to blacken
and blast its fame; purer for the blood that
watered its base; stronger for the
tramp of armed men around its assaulted
portals we now and here rejoice in the res
cued temple of our liberties. The credit
and glory of the undeSecrated walls of that
temple and of its unmoYed foundations is due
to the work and hardships of the American
soldier. BY the soldier is meant the men
who did the fighting. They are here with us. of
all parties, of every creed. of different birth;
they are here rivetted together in the fellow
ship and brotherhood of common services.
Some have not with them the entire quota of
legs or arms, belonging to able-bodied men.
but their hearts have lost nothing, for they
are the hearts of loyal soldiers and no truer
hearts of oak ever beat in human form any
where. And for you. who have come to us
to dav with armless sleeves and hObbling upon
crutches, my prayer is. and my hope is that
there is a better land where the missing
links' may one day be found and where the
departed members may be restored never to
part again.
Thirty.two regiments of infantry, seven
companies of artillery, two regiments of cav
airy. Maine sent to the front. 1t was their
service combined with that of their loyal as
socates which has made us in this year of
our Lord 1882 feiloW citizens, enjoying the
same rights, the same chances. the same in
calculable career whether we hail from the
EAST or from the WEST, or are of the SoUTH
or the NORTH. We are fellow citizens till
the crack of doom, entitled to equality of cit
izenship in our common country, whether we
once wore blue or gray, or whether We fell
into line and kept step to the music of Dixie
and double quicked to the rebel yell, or car
ried our muskets at right shoulder shift to
the refrain of John Brown or the tune of
Yankee Doodle. Honor, then, to the Ameri-
can soldier now and ever. Honor him in
sermon and speech. Honor him in sonnet,
stanza and epic. Honor him in the historic
page. Honor him in the unwasting forms by
which art seeks to prof., his well earned
fame. Honor the volunteer soldier who,
when his work of devastation and death was
ended. put aside his armor. melting into the
sea OF citizenship, making no ripple of dis
turbance upon its vast surface. Honor the
citizen soldier of America, who never knew
the feeling of vindlctiveness or revenge.
The question forces itself upon us, for what
end did the Republic lavish its treasure and
pile up its colossal debt and why did it pour
out the red life blood of its undaunted sons
until nearly every loyal household had its
empty sleeve or empty seat? If all this cost
" treasure and still more costly sorrow was
expended that given amount Of territory
should cot be parted-if only that a mere
geographical limitation should be kept intact
the soldier fought. then neither moulded form
or chiseled pedestal or warm encomium
would be found in high places, to be seen of
men as the need due to the soldier.
There is saws Carlyle. ''no biography
of any nation but wraps in il a message out
of heaven to the hearing ear" The message
of America is not e4nivocal or uncertain, for
il is written in clear letters to he read by all