The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1896-10-09

avenu. ma reached the United States
senate, or walked the other way on
Pennsylvania avenue and reached tne
White House, did not have to elmo
over political obloquyp Not one. HOW
much scorn and scoff, and brutal az
Ia elk did Horace Mann endure between
the time when he first began TO nRnc
for a better common school system IN
Massachusetts,, and the day when
statue in honor Of Kim was placed on
the steps of the state house overiooh-
ing s'The Commons?" :,
What is true of individuals II true OF
nations. Was it mild spring morn
ing when the pilgrim fathers lanaeu
] on Plymouth Rock, and did they come
| In a gilded yacht, gay streamers ny
ing? No. 1t was in cold Deem per,
and from ship in which one would
not want to cross the Hudson or the
Potomac river. Scalping knives az
ready to receive them, they landed
their only welcome, the Indian war
| wboon. Red men on the beach. Red
| men in the forest Red men on the
mountains. Red men in the valleys.
Living gates of red men. Gates q
| carbuncle!
Aboriginal hostility pushed back,
surely now our forefathers Will nave
| nothing to do but to take easy posses
sion of the fairest continent under the
sun. The skies so genial, the soil SO
fertile, the rivers so populons Win
finney life, the acreage SO immense,
there will be merry. No. The most
powerful nation, by army and
navy, sounded its protest across
5000 miles of water. Then came
Lexington, and Bunker Hill, and Mon
mouth. and Long Island battles, and
and Valley Forge, and Yorktown, and
starvation, and widowhood, and or
phanage, and the thirteen coloules
went through su fferings which the his
torian has attempted to put upon can
vas, but all in vain. Engravers knl1e'
and reporters skill, and Geographic
wire, and daily press. which have
made us acquainted with the nor
rors of modern battlefield, had not
vet begun their vigilance, and the
story of the American revolution has
never been told, and never will be
told. 1t did not take much ink to sign
the Declaration of Independence, but
| it took a terrific amount OF blood 70
maintain it. It was an awful gate OF
opposition that the men and women
and the women as much as the men
pushed back 1t was gate OF self
sacrifice. 1t was gate OF blood. IL
was gate of carbuncle.
We are not indebted to history for
our knowledge of the greatest OF ma
tional crises. Many of us remember
it. and fathers and mothers now living
had better keep telling that story to
/ their children, 80 that instead OF their
being dependent upon cold type and
obliged to say: ION such a page OF such
book you can read that" will they
rather be a BILE to say: .'My father told
me sol' my mother told me sol" Men
and women who wildly remember 1861,
and 1862, and 1863, and 1864, be your
selves the historians. telling it, not
with pen. but with living tongue and
voice and gesture. That is the grea'
use of Memorial Decoration day, FOL
the cally lilies on the grave tops sool
become breathless Of perfume, ane
. in a week turn to dust like
unto that which lies beneath
them. But the story of courage ane
self-sacriflce aud patriotism told OF
, platforms and in households and o.
the roadside and in churches and IL
cemeteries, by that annual recital vii
be kept fresh in the memory OF gener
ations as long as our American insti
5 buttons are worthy of preservation.
D beg after you are dead your childrel
, will be able to say. with the Psalmist
|. 1--WE have heard with our ears, o God
4 our fathers have told us, wha
d work Thou didst in their days
e in the times of old" But wha
q a time it was! -Four wears 9
d h omesickness! Four years OF brotherl
i and sisterly enlargement! -Four year
It of martyrdoml Four years OF masss
q crel Put them in long line, the cor
!. fiapration of cities, and see them high
f. M a whole continent! Put them i
n long rows, the hospitals, making
c. vast metropolis of pain and paroxysn
,e Gather them in one vast assem- blag
IN the millions of bereft from the 5
st Lawrence to the gulf, and from tt
or Atlantic to the Pacific beache
to Put the tears into lakes. ar
I'd the blood into rivers, and the shriel
I'd into whirlwinds! During those fol-
r. years many good and wise men at Il
st north and the south saw nothir
ahead but annihiliation. With such
in national debt we could never meet o.
nd obligations! With such mortal anti
bt athies northern and southern MT
sv could never come into amity! Repi
l and laa0rRl