Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1884-05-30
ro ..sENrINEL,, no. w.
IN mEMORIAM.

To-day these United States are gloomed
with Grape. The dead march is heard
and people 10Y with bowed heads to
the cemetery. A memorial holiday.
Peculiar in this, that it is the only holi-
day that calls up the primary sense OF
the term-holy-day. 1t is not an occa-
sion for bombs or picnics. The COM
mandant of the Grand Army in Califor-
mia did well, in guarded speech, to warn
the clergy against any misconception OF
the spirit of the day. In memory of the
veteran dead how courteously, coldly
and sternly he proclaimed a caution
against festivity on this day of May! 1t
is meet to-day that all, in spiritual sack
cloth and ashes, revertto the irrepressible,
but none the less melancholy, strife,
wounds and death of fellow-country-
men in the War of the Rebellion. No one,
unless he was born since, and hardly
even then, can bring to mind the pas
sion-we mean the actual suffering, as
we'll as the temper-of those days, and
say or write what may not CRATE upon
the ears of some, while it may stir the
eloquent emotions of home in others. A
hint such as this is enough for brave
men. No geographical line Of survey
need be mentioned nor any color that
suggests one section OF brothers as, Tor
the time, mad and thirsting for the blood
of another section of brothers from
whom they differed. The actual men OF
war needed not the rhetorical ingenuity
of Greeley to crystalline their
sentiment toward each other in words.
They were shaking hands across the
bloody chasm" already before the boom
of the last cannon had died away on the
air; and long before the relic hunters
had Clipped down and carried off in
splinters the Appomatox apple tree under
which the last sigh of crushed rebellion
was uttered. Perhaps those who are
rash enough to be brave in these piping
times Of peace ought not to be criticised
for the bitterness they sometimes give
vent to. 1t may be they are entitled to
our sympathy in this that they missed
the opportunity Of bleeding out their
overplus Of valiant gall with ar actual
enemy to confront.
Enough of this. The brave honoring
the brave is q spectacle that gratifies the
nobler instincts. Call the roll of the
old company, and when no answer comes,
note the eyes, 'those well springs of the
soul" of surviving comrades. The tear
drop is not womanly then; it is soldierly;
it is God-like. Loyalty to the dead is the
finest proof Of fealty to the living.
Go then, everybody, under the i'm
pulse and join in the procession with the
Grand Army boys, if you will, being in
vited. If not this, then respect, and, by
sympathy, share in their proper feelings.
Listen to the poem that our young
townswoman, Miss Mannheim, will read
in grateful eulogy of the dead. The
Hon. Thomas Wren's Grafton should be
heard by all who can find "a place in the
auditorium of the Opera House. 1t will
be conceived in the wisdom that comes
of culture and experience. He will
speak in earnestness, tempered by the
proprieties of the day. He will eloquent.
ly stir the emotions that await the ora-
tors call on such an occasion, and he will
point with wholesome, bipartisan truth
the morals We get from the lessons we
inherit from the bloody war, in which
Memorial Day is, and ever will be,
rooted.