San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-05-24
SOME REUNION LESSONS.

1t was great Dig DAY, three oil
four Of them, and a great big week
for Houston and for the Confeder.
ate veterans and for the strangers
within the gates Of the Bayou City
Such reunions make men feel the
fires of their youthful days burning
again brightly in the furnaces OF
feeling and for the time renewing
them in all the early vigor OF the
days that tried their souls and their
bodies on the field. One by one
these veterans are passing. The
days are lengthening behind them
and the shadows also as they 60
away into the hush of life's twi-
light, nearer and nearer into the
shadowy land. These are the men
who with their aforetime enemies,
their present time friends, have
made history for this great land.
These are they who have written
with the indelible hand Of war
the lessons of the indivisibility
of this American Republic, who
living volumes Of history in few
short years have set the seal Of all
that they thus taught and learned
upon the heart and mind of this
generation, to live there as long as
reason retains her seat and men,
DRY is an endowment Of the human
Intelligence. Why should the Ma
ton, supreme in her nationality,
fully recovered from the rents and
seams and scars in her outer gar
ments, feel anything but pride in
the achievements of these her sons
who have now learned at the stern
hand of war those lessons of Ma
tional Unity so long questioned
and so imperfectly understood and
accepted? These men who bore the
uniform Of the gray, and were in
the ranks of the divisional host,
see eye to eye with those of
that other host who took
the Union side of this great
national controversy and are for
all coming times to be found in the
ranks of the Nations defenders.
Their valor and their fidelity to
principle and their great sacrifices
are earnests of the loyalty and pa
triotism and unity of their sons,
should the occasion arise to call
forth these men for the common
defense of a common country. 1t
is with a sense of just pride that
the true American sees, alike in
South and North, growing out of
these hostile meetings of the past,
an assurance that the warlike arms
of both sections are full of vigor
and that there will be no holding
back in the future OF either section
when the call of common country
comes to both alike. There is a
real exultation in the mind Of the
true patriot in this reflection,
that in no one section of this
great Republic are its defenders
to be looked for, but that
alike from the Empire state
Of this great Southwest and the
Empire state Of that vast seaboard
in the East, shall come for the de-
fence Of common country in the
future the sons of the same valor
and the same endurance that so
signally marked the victors and
the vanquished in the late national
strife. Today we are all Ameri-
cans, loyal and true. The results
OF the war are honestly accepted
In nothing has the worth Of this
national idea in the Southern Sol,
dier's mind been more signally
shown than in this very accept
ance of the situation with all thai
it implies. After the fight comes
rest after the bitterness the sweet
fruits of peace; after the temporary
estrangement only warmer feel
ing of National Brotherhood.
The latch strings are beinl
heightened for that army of travel
ers who under the name of Com
mercial Tourists are to make a de