The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-08-19
THE ART LOAN AT WABASH.
Celebration of Soldiers Day-Senator Harri-
sons Address Before the Union Veterans.
to the Indianapolis journal.

| Special to the INDIANAPOLIS Journal.
| WABASH. Ind, Aug. 18-Tne city to-day has
been thronged with people from the county and
| from all the cities and towns within radius of
forty miles, the occasion being the celebration
of soldiers day at the art loan of the Grand
Army Of the Republic. The early trains were
crowded with veterans and the opera house has
been packed with perspiring humanity all day
that it has been practically impossible to traverse
! the hall.
At IL oclock',an escort of soldiers proceeded to
the Wabash railway station to re-
ceve the speaker of the day, Hon. Benjamin
Harrison, who entered a carriage with
Judge j. D. Conner and Hon. G. Cowgirl,
and was conducted to the opera-house, and
thence to Whites Manual Labor Institute five
miles south of the city. where he was entertained
at dinner and shown through the various depart
ments of this prosperous Indiana school At
3 o'clock over 5000 people assembled at the
courthouse the opera-house in which it was
contemplated delivering the address, being too
small to accommodate the multitude.
Senator Harrison, at o'clock, was introduced
by Capt. B. +. Williams, and spoke over forty
minutes, the large audience listening intently to
the close. His speech was essentially Grand
Army speech, and thoroughly non partisan
throughout. He said that time had rounded out
the bitter experiences of army life, the memory
of the gigantic struggle gradually fading
away. The cause of the North was
just not because IT'S enemies were put down, but
because truth was lifted up, and though the
strife is over and the asperites of the conflict
are forgotten, the hatred of treason and of seces
FL
| the Northern people. 1t will never do to pro
mote fraternity at the expense of the cause for
for which so many brave men died.
The soldiers of the civil war were intelligent
men. Newspapers and magazines were circu-
Lated and read in every camp, and an English
visitor to the federal headquarters was aston
ished to find private reading the Atlantic
monthly and dumbfounded when assured that
the same individual was the author of a leading
article in that periodical. the regular army
formed the nucleus of the hosts which battled
for the Union cause. 1t was composed of men
drilled in the art of war, and capable of effect
ing thorough organization, but the body Of the
army was composed of citizens who in emergency
take on the duty of the soldier. To these belong
the credit of prosecuting the war to successful
termination, and generations to come will read
with unmixed pleasure and pride the power of
civil government to protect itself from internal
dissensons. The war settled many questions
| beyond debate. 1t disposed of the idea that the
people of any State had the authority to absolve
themselves from citizenship, and that any State
could prevent the passage of national armies
through its territories without permission From
Nashville and from Appomattox there was no
| appeal. The Emancipation Proclamation was
the complement of the Declaration of Independ.
ence, The emancipation OF A. O00. 900 slaves was
an experiment never equaled in the worlds his
tory, and the historian will dwell with profound
satisfaction upon the success of the undertaking.
rejecting, as it does, the undying fame npon its
authorize martyred President, Abraham
Lincoln. The prejudices and the hate usually
engendered in civil war, did not linger
after the close of the rebellion. The govern
ment showed itself willing to forgive and for
get, and though many of the whipped children
of the Republic took refuge in the South Amer
lean States, they were freely invited to return,
and assume the rights and privileges of citizen
ship, and as many of them were unable to OBJ
tain passage homo, the government sent q vessel
TO bring them back.
The belief among the Southern members of
Congress in 1860 that the Yankees would not
fight was as sincere as it was general, as the
Georgia Senator. who blatantly asserted in
debate that the Northernors could be whipped
with switches, learned four years later, when
the victorious army of Sherman entered Georgia
like wedge and split the state from Dalton 10
Savannah. The soldier who would rather fight
than eat deserted from the last war, and will not