The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1885-10-08
SENATOR PALMER.
His Response at the Banquet
of the Army of the
Cumberland.
The Soldier as q SchoOlmaster-Mich.
igan's Just Tribute to Gen.
eral Grant.

DeioW Wo Bi'o III Auii tho folnoiho "a
Senator Palmer at the Army of the Cum
berland banquet in Grand Rapids:
MR.. CHAIRMAN: My toast is n peculiar one.
The committee having the banquet In charge It
seems had selected sentiments to be responded
to by each or the distinguished speakers, on tho
ground probably that they knew whereof they
should speak, and they had run out OF material
when they got down to me- All of you gentle
men favored by mark TO shoot at in the way
OF toast proposed. had much to do with the
great struggle, the outcome OF which has re-
suited so happily for both sides.
Why the committee did not give me Cincin-
natus. do not know, unless 1t was because
was more given TO turning other peoples swords
into sword However, they told me to take
what was left. or In other words to go as
OF collar and elbow. So took THE soldier as q
school master" Some of you may not recog-
nize its Appropriateness. although You must
confess that you have performed one part of
the role OF the jolly old pedagogue-you had
habit of whipping the boys
We have been taught by the books that war
was destructive, that schoolmasters were the
creatures and promoters OF peace. We have
been told that the pen mightier than the
sword. saying which implies that they are two
rival and not congenial forces. The cloister and
the camp have been regarded as IMPLYING the
antipodes OF human life, and yet the pupil OF
Socrates-the man who perpetuated and de-
veloped the philosophy of his master, the man
who gave his whole life to metaphysical study
and dreamy meditation-said that the men who
fought at Marathon and Saamis were the
schoolmasters of all Greece. What he meant Is
a matter OF inference, but we may educe from
his surroundings that he wished to impress
upon his people that the devotion of the 200
who met and defeated eleven times their num-
Der at Marathon was an example more ennobling
and more lasting than ali the speculations OF
the academy; than all the eloquence of the Agora.
He meant more; he undoubtedly meant that
their example showed that the refinement and
culture of Athens had not enervated her sons
that while other Grecian states had consented
to become tributary TO the Persian King, the
men who won these victories knew what indie
pendence and nationality meant and proposed
to maintain them-that the true soldier, the
man who fights for "a principle, knowing what
he fights for and why he fights for it, is the man
who not only has been trained in the gymna-
SUM but has listened in the schools. He must
also have referred to that spectacle of other
leaders generously giving away their right of
command that Miltiades might lead them on
that Hateful day.
What Athens achieved after that fight Is
matter of history. How Phidas desgned-how
Praxiteles chiseled-how Parrhasius painted
how one man ruled by the force of his genius,
has given to this period distinctive appellation
"a the Age OF Pericles.
The men whom Plato called the schoolmasters
OF all Greece have become more-they have be-
come the schoolmasters of Christendom. The
bloodshed there has flowed down in broad
stream for nearly twenty-four hundred years;
has irrigated all lands where education has dug
channels, and baptized every hero who has
fought for hissnatIve land from Brutus down to
the volunteer who left the little schoolhouse at
his countrys call 10 fight in the war of the
1t is possible, in the short time which pro-
priety will permit me to take, to cite but few
instances There was Winkelried who made
points to his heart at Anspach: sgd
ney, who passed the cup of cold water
to the wounded soldier. saying Thy need Is
greater than mine; Hotter shot to death at
Mantua; Hampden who gave his life for liberty
at Chalgrove: Ney holding single-hsnded the
Russian army at bay at the gates Of wilma, by
fHaf rAf 10 III.
up the babe whom its mother had thrown away
in her despair, and carrying IL in his arms TO q
place OF safety; Nathan Hale who lamented
that he had Tut one life to give TO his country;
Washington Valley Forge: Mad Anthony
Wayne mt Stony Point-all these are lessons
given by the heroes OF the past which educate
not only for war but for the duties OF peace
They illustrate self-sacrifice. self denial, pa
triotism, pety, daring, loyalty, fidelity, long
suffering, the qualities which more than others
1t was these or like instances of noble quail
ties which prepared our nation for the sub
FINEST exhibition of all these traits in the
of the great rebellion. The majority OF men
are not educated by books, they are educated
by deeds. Not by mental processes alone, but
by the ideals which the heroes of all time have
created. The saying that the blood of martyrs
is the seed'of the church is not more true than
that the blood of patriots is the cement OF the
state. To whom Is this country not dearer now
than 1t was before 300, 900 men had given their
lives for its redemption2 This appeals to old
and young alike-but the great lessons which
have been taught in the last twenty-four years,
and which will be taught a. long as men shall
cite Marathon and Salamis, will be that, al
though armies are powerful, ideas are still more
so, and that armies are glorious in proportion
TO the benetcence OF the ideas which they at
tempt to enforce.
1t will be told in the future as it has been in
the past that not until the firing on the flag was
a single preparation made for the gigantic
struggle which followed. and that then men
sprang from every field and every factory TO
avenge the insult; that wives sent their hus-
M ia hafr al afp fhafv hrntl h
ers, maidens their lovers. and all for the flag
But why, the child will ask, for the flag? Why
should so many men die because they fired on
the iag2 Then he will be told that the flag
means something more than the combination
OF beautiful hues which delights his youthful
eyes. 1t means the dignity of labor, equal
rights, good government, progress for him and
his fellows, security OF person and property.
1t means that wherever he may go the flag
be told that the flag to be powerful for
all these objects must be jealously guarded;
that no insult must even be tolerated without
reparation being demanded and enforced He
millions of men dared wounds, suffering, sick
ness, and death: that for this Ipen and boys
charged up the glacis at Vicksburg "'mid iron
rain and ieaden hail." for this men laid down
their lives by thousands at Aptietam and Get
tysburg: for this men went 30 their death in
tho crater at Petersburg; for this black men
indicated their rights TO be called men at
Wagner and Port Hudson; Tor this Andrews
ard his companions died an ighominious death
at AJlAnba. LOT JnlS DnOuSAnQ men aC-
cepted death by famine aud disease at Ander-
sonviliel What school-masters efficient as
these2
! As men in the far East have worshipped the
sun, not for itself but as a representative Of the
power. the law, the beneficence Of which 10 was
an emblem, so will the child OF the future be
taught as we of to-day have been Taught what
the flag represents and why it should be venera-
ted Every battle. every ambush. every SOL
dier's grave, whether in the Government ceme-
terles or hung with garlands at home on
Decoration Day, is an object lesson never to be
forgotten. Every crippled soldier is a moni-
tor; every poetic phrase, like The March from
the Mountain to the Sea" kindles the imagina-
ton and spurs the boy to know all about that
dramatic and fateful procession. The battle
lyric. "Sheridsn's Ride, which immortallzes the
horse and adds laurels to the rider, IL there
were room for them, when it says:
with foam and with dust the black charger
was gray,
But the flash of his eye and his red nootrils'
play
Seemed to the whole great army to say,
have brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down, to save the day"
makes the child wonder IL the Ceutaurs of old
did not have their origin in scenes like this en-
acted in the Shenandoah Valley on that morn
ing. Every phrase like Logan's at Shiloh as he
rode fair mark mp and down the lines Death,
boys, but dishonor never" thrills the boy like
the blast of a trumpet The band played that
heroic tune. Marching Through Georgia,
quickens his pulse. The widow in mourning
for husband or sons tells him that men have
died and women must weep and all for that