The San Francisco call., 1896-04-28
Extension Commissioner Black
Eulogizes the Great Hero of
the Rebellion.
MEMORIAL BANQUETs HELD.
Distinguished Men of the Present Time
Unite in Recalling Noble Deeds
of the Past.

fourth anniversary of the birth of Genera
Grant was celebrated at Galena to-day
with unusual enthusiasm. Business i.
generally suspended, the city is in holiday
garb and hundreds of visitors from othel
parts of the State, as well as from acros!
the Iowa border, are joining with Galeni
citizens in the celebration. A large dele
CATION from Chicago, headed by Hon. III
II. Kohlsaat of the Times Herald, who g
year ago presented to the city magnif-
cent oil painting of Lees surrender to
Grant at Appomattox, and who is also the
donor of the statue in Grant Park, arrived
this morning at 10 o'clock.
The events Of the day were inaugurated
with a parade of citizens, municipal de-
partments, Grand Army and secret and
patriotic societies. Following this was 8
reunion of the survivors of the Twelfth
Regiment of Illinois Volunteers. This
was the regiment in which Grant first en-
listed. He was offered the captaincy of q
company, but declined it, and General A.
/. Chs~lain, now of Chicago, and who is
present to-day, was chosen in his place.
The redcubtable Jerry Simpson of Kansas
is also one of the survivors of the Twelfth.
The chief feature of the days pro-
gramme was the mass meeting this after
noon in Turner Hall, and at which, after
patriotic selections by the orchestra and
audience, ex-Congressman General John
c. Black, now United States District At
torney for the Northern District OF
Illinois, delivered the Grafton.
In beginning his ora ton General Black
said.
He who has trodden the high uplands of
middle age, or perchance turned to its de-
clivities that run down into the shadows, has
not need OF belief in his personal Immortality
to understand why the great live forever. For
by his side so journeying troop the fair COM
paniOns of childhood, those with whom he
played and who stood with him in the early
morning while the world was sweet with the
dewy incense OF flowers and radient with the
pearly lights OF dawn; and after them
come the stronger figures OF joyous and
emulous youth; they whose garments
begin 10 show the first dust of the journey,
whose faces the first loss OF childh ood's celes.
tiaI glow; and after these those heroic figures
whom we have seen and admired, although
moving in different spheres; such a Pantheon
of the beloved and Yenerated in each man s
memory. And the universal memory of the
country preserves in like fashion the memor-
ries and shades of its beautiful, its good, its
true. its strong and brave.
He who stands by Yorktown sees, not the
lowlands and tumbling sea, but there arise
before him Washington and Lafayette and the
united armies of France and America; al
Bunker Hill stands Warren's slender form; al
Valley Forge the worn and starving CONT
nentals; at Vicksburg, Grant and Logan,
Mcpherson and Sherman, Mcclellan and Blair,
and the invincible besiegers; at Gettysburg,
Hancock and Meade, and Doubleday and
Sickels; over against them Lee and Longstreet
and Pickett and 15O, 900 struggling men; al
Appomattox, Grant and a vast host
and a gallant quarryl In the old
Senate chamber we observe, not the
quaint columns and the vaulted roof, but
all the ghostly echoes are vibrant with Clay
and Calhoun, Benton and Webster; their
shades troop forth along the uncolumned air
they gather where their earthly deeds were
done; they fill the measures OF heroic song;
the pages of history show their brave acts and
noble speech; their dust may be scattered on
the winds, lost in the loving and all-embrac-
ing earth, but themselves, grown into luminous
bands, rise and form a shining array till they
fill the whole heaven OF recollection, and,
gathered about their country's broad ba sed
aud growing structure, become its immortal
guards. Such an immortality belongs to those
who fell at Marathon, and those who tinged
the blue sea with their blood at 6alamis and
Trafalgar; such are all our immortals!
throng our exalted stations; they point to
glorifed battle plains and to high scaffolds,
where they paid the last obligations to right;
they sentinel the long and growing highways of
fame; they cluster around heroic ep ochs made
noble by teeir speech or written word or un-
selfish deed; they are the better angels of our
National life, and point to highest purpose
and noblest devotion, to love OF country and
her cause.
After reviewing the gallant services rem
dered the Nation by General Grant the ex-
Pension Commissioner concluded his ad-
dress as follows:
Character such as that of Grant was slow in
growth; not attracting public attention,
known only to the most intimate of his COM
panions, and not fully comprehended by
them; it was accretion to a rock; when the
hour came for its display it was found ringed
and banded by ali the surroundings OF his life.
How true he was to friends all know. His
word was pledged at Appomattox to the
Southern soldiery, and at a later day, when it
WIS proposed TO ignore the terms he had
made, he stood like a lion for those who had
trusted his woodland saved them. When he
discovered that his purposes were opposed by
constitutional authority he bowed his crested
head and let the island OF San Domingo go.
He upheld the traditions of his country and
announced. as the illustrious before and since
him have done, that on American soil there
was room only for American institutions.
AT last, his life's work done, ne bowed to the
inevitable. All men watched those closing
hours-alike his comrades and those devoted
opponents whom his arms had saved for the
nobler destinies of our citizenship. OF old
they turned river by and buried the conoueror
deep in its bend, where no vengeful hand
could ever desecrate his SAD remains. But our
hero passed away in the sight of all men,
weeping and listening, and from those lips
that had spoken the iron words OF inexorable
war breathed in faint tones that shalt shake