Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-05-31

husbands, our comrades and our friends;
we know them well. With us they
walked these streets. engaged in the
same pursuits and Joined the same
army. In yonder street we saw them
part with loved ones Father, mother.
wife and sweetheart, and march away.
We followed them with PRAYERS and
tears in all their weary marches, by
day and by night in the rain, through
the mud or under blistering southern
sun, begrimed with dust, foot-sore and
weary, as they make their way to the
front. AT last they take their places in
the great lines of the blue, facing the
gray. extending halt way across the
continent. We hear the boom of the
cannon, the rattle of the musketry, the
shouts of the contending forces. We
hear the groans of the wounded, we see
the faces of the dead, we look and 10,
and behold! it is one of our boys
a home in Grant is made desolate.
My friends. these precious lives laid
upon the altar of our country represent
to us in some faint degree the cost o f
that precious thing called liberty. In
all ages of the world patriots have
given their lives to secure and maintain
it. In my opinion there is no nation
or people under the sun who enjoy so
much of civil and religious liberty as
the result of such sacrifice, as the people
of our own land then we must not
lightly esteem these blessings and for
get that they have been purchased at
the price of blood The history of the
world has been one of oppression and
wrong, the rich and strong have ever
tyrannized over the poor and weak.
No advance has ever been made by the
race in any direction toward equal
rights and privileges, but has been OPP
posed and attended with toll and suffer-
ing, and in the very nature Of things
will continue in the future rs long as
humanity remains substantially what it
is-supremely selfish. The conflict then
is not for day, or an age, but for all
time. The war will not cease until
every wrong is righted. and liberty,
equality and justice are universal.
Even to-day in cur own land two
mighty material forces, for good or for
evil, are contending for supremacy.
Forces united and harmonious capable
of making the waste places Of the earth
blossom as the rose, of building cities
and feeding and clothing and educating
the race, and increasing the sum total
of happiness. Divided and antagonists,
controlled by demagogues and scoun-
drels, extremely dangerous, and in the
absence of u great right public senti-
ment, able to destroy all that united
they have produced, and to overthrow
this fair fabric of government erected
by our fathers and maintained by our
sons. An eminent statesman has pre-
dicted such a fate to popular govern
ment, that vandals within our borders
would deyastate our land with fire and
sword. With the increase of crime and
violence, discomfort among laborers,
ayarice of capital, disregard to all moral
restraint by a large portion OF our citi-
zens, it sometimes seems as if these
predictions would yet prove true.
But, fellow citizens, after all, NAV l
not be permitted at this time to express
my faith in popular government and
my hope and belief that an allwise
Providence that has preserved us as
a Nation in the past. viii still guide and
preserve us in the future, and that the
people will prove wise enough, strong
enough and good enough to govern
themselves, and ordain just and hui
name laws to protect and control botA
capital and labor? predict that these
two great interests will soon again join
hands and march along the great high
way of the future, dragging at her
chariot wheels a new era OF peace,
prosperity and happiness.
The choir then sang "A Grateful
Nation, one of the pieces printed in
Thursdays HERALD.
Rev. S. d. Pulford made the opening
nrayer after which the President intro