The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-09-30

, How many of the mighty men who
went one way on Pennsylvania avenue
and reached the United States senate or
walked the other way on Pennsylvania
avenue and reached the White House
did not have to climb over political oblo'
guy? Not one How much scorn and
scott and brutal attack did Horace Mann
endure between the time when he first
began to fight for better common
school system in Massachusetts and the
day when statue in honor Of him was
placed on tho steps Of the statehouse
overlooking the Commons?
Read the biography Of Robert Hall,
the Baptist preacher, who, though he
had been pronounced Ounce at school,
lived to thrill the world with his Chris
tian eloquence, and Of George Peabody,
who never owned carriage and denied
himself all Injuries that he might
while living and after death, through
last will and testament, devote his un"
counted millions to the education Of the
poor people in England and America,
and of Bishop James, who in boyhood
worked his passage from Ireland to
America and became the joy of Metho.
dism and blessing to the race. Go to
the biographical alcove in city, state OF
national library and find at least every
other book an illustration of overcome
obstacle and of carmine gate that had to
be forced open.
Living Gates.
What is true of individuals is true Of
nations. Was it mild spring morning
when the pilgrim fathers landed on
Plymouth rock and did they come in a
gilded yacht, gay streamers flying? No.
It was in cold December, and from a
ship in which one would not want to
cross the Hudson or the Potomac river.
Scalping knives all ready to receive
them, they landed, their only welcome
the Indian warwhoop. Red men on the
beach. Red men in the forest. Red men
on the mountains. Red men in the val
leys. Living gates of red men. Gates OF
carbuncle.
Aboriginal hostility pushed back,
surely now our forefathers will have
nothing to do but to take easy posses
sion of the fairest continent under the
sun. The skies b. genial, the soil SO fer
tile, the rivers so populous with finny
life, the acreage so immense, there will
be nothing to do but eat, drink and be
merry. No. The most powerful nation,
by army and navy, sounded its protest
across 5, 600 miles of water. Then came
Lexington, and Bunker Hill, and Mon
mouth, and Long Island battles, and
Valley Forge, and Yorktown, and star.
vation, and widowhood and orphanage,
and the 1S colonies went through suffer.
ings which the historian has attempted
to put upon paper and the artist to put
upon canvas, but all in vain. -Engraver's
knife, and reporters skill, and tele'
graphic wire, and daily press, which
have made US acquainted with the hor'
rors Of modern battlefield, had not yet
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 terrific
amount Of blood to maintain it. 1t was
an awful gate Of opposition that the
men and women-and the women as
much as the men-pushed back. 1t was
q gate of self sacrifice. It was gate OF
blood. 1t was gate Of carbuncle.
Red Letter Days.
We are not indebted to histCiy for
our knowledge Of the greatest Of nation
al crises. Many Of US remember it, and
fathers and mothers now living had bet.
ter keep telling that story to their chill
dren, no that instead Of their being de.
pendent upon cold type and obliged to
say, ION suoh page Of such book
you can read that, :" will they rather be
able to say: "My father told me 60, ="
sMy mother told me So" Men and
women who vividly remember 1861,
and 1862, and 1868, and 1864, be your
selves the historians, telling it, not with
pen, but with living tongue and voice
and gesture. That is the great use Of
Memorial decoration day, for the Gala
lilies on the grave tops soon become
breathless Of perfume, and in a week
turn to dust like unto that which lies
beneath them. But the story of courage
and self sacrifice and patriotism told on
platforms and in households and by the
roadside and in churches and in GENE.
teries by that annual recital will be
kept fresh in the memory Of generations
as long as our American institutions
are " fthy of preservation. Long after
you are dead your children will bc able
to say, with the psalmist, "We have
heard with our ears, o God, our fa-
theirs have told us, what work thou
didst in their days in the times Of old. "
But what a time it was. Four years Of
homesiokness. Four years Of brotherly
and sisterly estrangement. Four years
of martyrdom. -Four years of massacre.
Put them in a long line, the confagra.
tion of cities. and see them light up a
whole continent. Put them in long
rows, the hospitals, making vast me-
tropolis Of pain and paroxysm. Gather
them in one vast assemblage, the mil
hons Of bereft from the st. Lawrence
to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to
CllG 7 uCluC pSdCilCS. w tuo lCoAo 1AVo
lakes, and the blood into rivers, and
the shrieks into whirlwinds During
those four years many good and wise
men at the north and south saw nothing
ahead but annihilation. With such q
national debt we could never meet our
obligations. With such mortal antipa-
thies northern and southern men could
never come into amity. Representatives.
Of Louisiana and Georgia and the Caro-
linas could never again sit side by side
with the representatives Of Maine, Mas
sachusetts and New York at the nation
al capital.
Lord John Russell had declared that
we were "a bubble bursting national
ity," and it had come true The ma
tions of Europe had gathered with very
resigned spirit at the funeral of our
American republic. They had tolled the
bells on parliaments and reichstags and
lowered their flags at half mast, and
even the lion on the other side of the
sen had whined for the dead eagle on
this side. The deep grave had been dug,
and beside Babylon, and Thebes, and
Tyre, and other dead nations of the past
our dead republic was to be buried The
epitaph was all ready: "Here lies tho