Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-05-30

Dust reposes when death has mustered YOU
out of service here will be as tenderly
cared for. and as regularly strewn with
Gods symbols Of resurrection as those I'M
der which your departed comrades forms
lie sleeping.
You have come today to decorate graves
Let me remind you of sublmer work Of
decoration to which you gave yourselves
when you fought the battles of the war.
THE success Of the Union armies deco
rated our century with its noblest achieve
ment. There have been other epochs in
human affairs which stand out in the
splendid insignia of great events in hu-
manity's progress All that Greece became
to the world of her time, and to after
times, had its seed in Marathon and Sala-
mis-, whose battles stayed the Persian in
Vasion. and saved to the race q great
civilization. And what is known in his
tory as the Golden Age of Rome was con-
alton, and to all its posterity-a great sys-
tenn Of jurisprudence. But the present
century, while 1t will also be noted as the
age Of scientific discovery and invention.
greatest distinction as the age in which
occurred the emancipation of a race
A MOmentous Event.
I'VE are too near, as yet, the event which
will give to our White House its proudest
memory as the place in which Abraham
Lincoln signed the emancipation act to an
preciate It's magnitude. A thousand wears
hence the citizens of the republic will be-
gin to take In the far-reaching effects of
that movement, as those Of the present
cannot; just as we Of today are only be-
ginning, as 1t were, to comprehend hou,
vital to our present civilization were move
ments and events in the days of the Phar-
aohs and the Caesars. The victory of the
Union armies in our late war also meant
the decoration of the American republic
with the distinction of the worlds leader
ship.
From the time of the formation Of our
government the thoughtful people of the
old world have been looking to this conn
try as to the greatest OF all theatersI
not the final theater of, all time-for test
Ing mans capacity for self-government.
Here the hopes of mankind for ali that
Is best and noblest in human possibility
have been finding their center. The wisest
are watching, our history, to the intent of
discovering whether or no we have found
and are developing the true secrets of lib
erty, equality. fraternity France began
the experiment in the eighteenth century.
but the reign Of terror was the confession
Of it's dismal failure. And up to the out
break Of our civil war We a people, had
been wrestling with the same problem but
with i'll success. Then It was that a great
prophet came to with his message. de-
claring if Gods voice was uttering the
words, that the nation could not exist
half slave and half free The war cut the
knot we had been so long and vainly try
ing to unite, and with a new birth of free
dom the nation began its illustrious ca
reer, and forged quickly to the front
amongst the governments of EARTH
you builded better than you knew. To
save the Union you battled. What YOU did
was to make possible for your country
destiny with which none of the empires of
the past can be compared We look in
vain for a parallel to the leaps and bounds
in true progress which the United States
Of America has made in the thirty years
since 1868. In the matter Of Increase in
population, wealth, influence during that
time our nation has been the wonder of
the world. 1t Is not surprising, therefore,
that our cousins across the sea are get
ting bewildered, not to say nettled. at our
growth and claims; not surprising that
Europe should be considering if the time
has not come for 1t to form an alliance
for the purpose of checking what it calls
American pretensions! AS If it were pos