The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1896-06-12

panQs for others, wounds for others,
homesickness for others, blood for
others, sepulcher for others.
Those who visited the national
cemeteries at Arlington Heights and
at Richmond and Gettysburg saw one
inscription on soldiers tombs oftener
repeated than any other-Unknown
When, about twenty-one years ago,
was called to deliver the GRAFTON at
Arlington Heights, Washington. l
was not 80 much impressed with
the minute guns that shook
the earth or with tho attendance
of president and cabinet and for
eign ministers and generals OF the
army and commodores OF the navy, as
with the pathetic and overwhelming
suggestiveness of that epitaph on SC,
many graves at my feet. Unknown'
Unknownl 1t seems to me that the
time must come when the government
of the United States shall take off that
epitaph. They are no more unknown!
We have found them out at last. They
are the beloved sons of the republic.
Again, by this national ceremony
we mean the future defense OF this
nation. BY every wreath of flowers
on the soldiers graves we say: "Those
who die for the country shall not be
forgotten" and that will give enthu-
siasm to our young men in case our
nation should in the future need de-
fend itself in battle. We shall never
have another war between the north
and south. The old decayed bone OF
contention, American slavery, has been
cast out, although here and there a de-
PRAYED politician takes it up to see II
he can't gnaw something off it. We
are farther and farther from the pos
sibility of sectional strife.
No possibility of civil war. But
about foreign invasion l am not so
certain. When spoke against war
said nothing against self-defense. An
inventor told me that he had invented
STYLE of weapon which could be used
in self-detense, but not in aggressive
warfare. I said; 'When you get the
nations to adopt that weapon you have
introduced the millennium" l have
no right to go off my neighbours
premises and assault him, but if some
rufian break into my house for the as
sassination of my family, and | can
borrow gun and load it in time and
aim it straight enough, will shoot
him.
There is no room on this continent
for any other nation-except Canada,
and a better neighbor no one ever had.
If you don't think so, go to Montreal
or Toronto, and see how well they will
treat you. Other than that there is
absolutely no room for any other ma
ton. have been across the continent
again and again, and / know that we
have not half inch of ground for the
equity foot of foreign despotism to
stand on. But am not so sure that
some of the arrogant nations OF Eu-
rope may not some day challenge
us. do not know that those forts
around New York bay are to sleep all
through the next century. l do not
know that Barnegat lighthouse will
not vet look off upon a hostile navy.
do not know but that a half dozen
nations, envious Of our prosperity,
may want to give us wrestle. Dur
ing our civil war there were two or
three nations that could hardly keep
their hands off u.s. 1t is very easy to
pick national quarrels, and if our ma.
ton escapes much longer it will be an
| exception.
II foreign foe should come, we want
men like those of 1862 to meet them.
We want them all up and down the
coast. Pulaski and Fort Sumter in the
same chorus of thunder as Fort La
fayette and Fort Hamilton. Men who
will not only know how to fight, but
how to die. When such a time
comes, if it ever does come, the
generation on the stage of action
will say: my country will care formy
family as they did in the soldiers asy.
lum for the orphans of the civil war,
and my country will honor my dust as
| it honored those who preceded me in
patriotic sacrifice, and once a year al
any rate, on Decoration day, shall be
| resurrected into the remembrance OF
those for whom 1 died. Here 1 go for
God and my country! Huzzah!"
If foreign foe should come, the old
| sectional animosities would have nc
power. Here go our regiments into the
battlefield: Fifteenth New York vol.
unteers, Tenth Alabama cavalry, Four
tenth Pennsylvania rifiemen. Tenth
Massachusetts, artillery, Seventh South
Carolina sharpshooters. 1 do not
know but it may require the
attack of some foreign foe to
make us forget our absurd sectional
wrangling. 1 have no faith in the cry,
mo North, no South, no East, nc
West" Let all four sections keep
their peculiaritles and their preferen.
ces. with each doing its own work and