New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1883-07-25
sweethearts and Wives.

At the Army Of the Potomac reunion
in Washington, Charles Dudley Warner,
in responding to the toast, .'Sweethearts
and Wives, 'spoke in part as follows:
This is an excellent and venerable
Toast. have no doubt itcould be found
deposited under the foundation stone of
one of the Oldest existing monuments in
the world-that to Washington, over
yonder. It is old, but it will be still new
and fresh long after the Washington
monument is finished. It is one of the
most ingenious sentiments ever devised
by evasive man. Its origin is lost in the
mists of antiquity, but it was no doubt
concOcted before latch-keys were invent
ed. "Sweethearts and Wives" Is that
''and' q conjunctive or distinctive
conjunction? It is both. It suits the
cornwall hour of the banquet, and it will
pass muster under domestic inspection,
at any hour of the morning. 1t may
mean, for the worldly moment, that
there are sweethearts and there are also
wives, and it may mean, when it must,
in the hour when an account has to be
given of the deeds done here in the ban
quet, that sweethearts and wives are the
same persons. 1t is an honored toast,
being usually kept, like good wine, till
the last.
1t is not necessary, in the presence of
the Army of the Potomac, that should
appear as the eulogist of woman. She
is indeed beginning to speak for herself,
and am expecting the day when she
will begin to speak for us, when she will
do man some slight justice for the little
part he has played in history. She
knows all about it; she reads him like
the alphabet. She knows just when he
has been false and when true, when his
bravery was genuine, and when it was
from the fear of being called coward,
when he has been a pretender, when he
has been hypocrite, when he has been
so loyal that she could worship him
without a hutter of reservation, and love
him without a blush; she has studied
him, and kept all these things in her
heart. She has shed tears enough over
him to wash away all his sins-to float
him into Heaven, if he could go there by
water. She has hattered him till his
head touched the stars. She has strength
ened his heart, and sent him out into
the world with a shield and the injunc-
ton not to return without it, unless he
was borne upon it. She is always will
ling to hold out a light, by which he can
swim across the river to her, and her
smile is always worth the SWIM She is
always ready to pray him out of any
mischief she has enticed him into. She
will make man of him if anything in
this world can. Her constancy is
proverb; she is the one thing that is
never twice the same, and that never
changes; the one object that man can
confidently tie to. She is our national
motto rsonified-infnite variety in
unity. What she was yesterday she will
not be tomorrow, and she was not the
day before; she is everlastingly the same.
What she was to the soldier of the
Army of the Potomac l need not say,
whether she remained at home to sew
for him and pray for him, or follow him
atield with lint and bandages, or went
about in hospitals in the garb of a saint
with the smile of an angel, the picture
of self-sacritioc, to ''kiss him for his
mother" How her patriotism and gen.
ius for organization shone out in that
great army she created, second only in
Importance to the army in the field,
which cared for the wounded and sick
When you are balancing in your mind
the cost of q spring bonnet and 10000
regalias, remember that it was Ameri-
can women who devised and executed
the greatest alienation ever known for
the miseries of war. Did she make any
less sacrifice than you, patient in her
lonely home, keeping up her courage
and yours? need not say how you
thought of her constancy and of her
pride in you, and your desire to play
the man partly former sweetheart
or wife-heartened you and refine you.
You thought last at night and first in
the morning that she was thinking of
you, and the thought that she would
weep with JOY in your victory was the
sweetest thing in it. God bless her!
how she stood by you, and was proud of
you, and loved you. Oh, faithful heart,
what is there in life so sweet!
But am not here to praise woman
or the Army of the Potomac; only to
give you, ''sweethearts and wives"-a
sweetheart is good; q wife is better;
best of all is, sweetheart and wife in one
person,