The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-08-31
RIVER AT s A. NJ.
Danger Height of
WELCOME.

Not only the doors, but the hearts
OF ST. Paul are open to the guests who
will come to us today. The weeks of
preparation are over, the best that we
have has been made ready for those
whom we delight to honor, and now
encampment week has begun. What
it means to these grizzled survivors
of the life and death struggle for the
Union we may partly guess. To them
the solemn meaning of life, the stern
ness Of its duties, the imminence of
its sacrifices. the one great moment in
which a life is fused and made to fill
the mould predestined for it are all
included in that gigantic struggle
whose memory is today the most real
of all their possessions. AS they gath
er about their camp fires and recount
the days of long ago, it Is the world
of storm and stress that lives again
about them; the pain and passion and
unreality of a time when men and
women were moved to superhuman eff
fort and supernatural devotion; when
the great mill of fate caught and
ground men relentlessly in working out
the doom of a world, and life and all
that it holds dear grew small and fell
away when matched with patriotism
and with duty.
1t is for us that the same lesson
comes with the meeting in our city of
the thinning ranks Of comrades who
marched against the gray generation
ago. 1t is a warning and an inspira-
ton. And 1T is well that we, in the
press and hurry Of the age, in time
when meaner strffes than that for lib
erty and union cast their tolls about
us, in fat commercial age when the
higher and nobler motives are relegat-
ed to the world of mere sentiment, in
day when people count the cost and
mark the profit before they set them
selves in battle array, should have
brought visibly before US the mean
ing and the cost of a nations life. War
is not the worst of evils. When the
cause is high and holy, so that peo-
pie offer up their all rather than that
their ideals should perish, then its
magic touch is the creator of virtues
and the sign of birth of human souls.
1t is we'll for US that we should look
upon those whom war once touched
with It's message to the death. It is
well for us that our youth, who have
seen only the smoke of busy peace
ascend to heaven, should be remind
ed that life itself may be held small
thing and a cheap thing in order that
nation may live and the eternal
wrong be put to flight and shame
This thought, this cause of venera-
ton, is our greeting, rather than our
flashing of flags and the f1nery in
which we have decked ourselves for
this occasion. To us and to our chill
dren and to our children's children be
the messages of this hour. The key
note is love of country; one high form
of that vast invisible force that moves
the universe. The inspiration is the
fact that still there lives among us
that fine flame of conservation to duty
that sends men gladly to the death in
the birth-throes of nations and of
moral issues The example is self
sacrifice; the flower of human spir-
itual development, the passionate vor-
tex into which great souls cast them
selves that they may grow near to
the divine. All these great possibin-
ties for humanity, things that are not
of the market place, things that have
ceased to echo daily in too many
hearts, are brought close to us by the
events of this week and by the men to
whom we hold out hands of welcome
They cannot, they must not pass and
leave us untouched by the high and
sacred ideas that are the real treas
ures of nation and the foundation
OF its greatness.