The Daily Texarkanian., 1894-09-14
WATTERSON'S ADDRESS.
The Brilliant Kentuekian Addresses
the G. A. R., Inviting the Body
to Louisville.

The address delivered before the
Grand Army of Republic, at Pitts
aurg, Pa, on the 18th instant, by
Col, Henri Watterson, of the Louis
vile Courier Journal, extending to
that body, on behalf of the citizens
of Louisville, Ky, an invitation to
hold its next annual session in that
city, was pronounced by those who
heard it a perfect masterpiece of
elegant oratory, full of sentiments,
rich in feeling and glowing with
rhetorial eloquence and beauty.
The address was delivered in part,
as follows;
1 have come here today-an un-
doubling American-to lay at the
feet of American manhood the tri-
butte of respectful homage. l have
come-a willing witness-to bear
testimony to the genius of Ameri-
can sOldiership, have come with
message from your countrymen
who dwell on what was once the
neither side of the line, but whose
hearts beat in ready response to
your hearts and who bid me tell YOU
they want to see you.
Candor compels me to say that
there was a time when we did not
want to see you, There was time
when-without any invitation what
ever-either written or verbal
without so much as a suggestion of
welcome-you insisted upon giving
us the honor Of your company, and,
as it turned out, when we were but
ill prepared to receive you. 1t were
a pity, now that we are prepared,
now that the lid is off the pot and
that the latch string hangs ontside
the door, you should refuse us the
happiness of entertaining you, of
greeting you, not
with bloody hands to hospitable
graves,
but as friends and broth
ers, as fellow citizens, who learned
how to value one another amid
scenes that left no time or room for
equivocation and transactions ap-
plying to human virtue the very
highest tests. | know that, what
ever your decision may be, you will
give me credit for entire sincerity
when add that l was never hap
pier in my life than l am in finding
myself the vehicle for such a com
munication-the spokesman from
such men to such men-the first of
many voices to be raised, in good
will and in good faith, entreating
the Grand Army of the Republic to
come South to bring it's knitting
and stay all day
incidentally, allow me to urge
that, upon this initial visit-this
forerunner of many visits-you end
the first stage of your march and
pitch your tents and light your
campfres upon the banks of the
beautiful river, which takes its rise
in these highlands, at that point
where it pauses for moment in its
journey toward the sea, to gather
fresh impulse and renew its alleg-
lance to national sentiments and
continental ideas.
You will find there much to ex-
hilarate you, You will find there,
as nowhere else in such measure,
the most absolute obliteration of all
that we want to forget, the most
absolute preservation of all we want
to remember, of days, which in
darkness or in ight-in sunshine OF
in sorrow-must remain forever
sacred to each and every one of us,
You will find there engaged in bus
mess rivalry, men who fought side
by side in the imminent, deadly
breach, engaged in equal partner
ship, men who were introduced tC
one another out of the months OF
hostile cannon. You will find there
wearing the same uniforms, and ex
changing kindred countersigns, mer
who, in moments of conviviality,
sometimes forget ON which sides
they fought in the war of the sec
tions, happy in a comradeship never
to end this side the grave. Yol
will lind there a valorious littl,
army Of embryo heroes, who have
somehow got so mixed up in thei
cradles that no one of them cai
tell which grandpapa it was tha
wore the blue and which that wor'
the gray, but who can lisp their de
termination to lick the whole crea
tion when they get big enough t.
wear the cross swords that hang o.
the wall in silent proof that the
came of good fighting stock. And
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