The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-05-24


we shall send our beloved President of
the Hawaiian Republic to be our SEN
ator at Washington.
Comrades the words of the Hebrew
Lawgiver. as given in the text. This
day shall be unto you for a memorial
are so fitting as to seem almost to have
been written for our own Memorial
Day. And may we not feel that those
other words, And We shall observe 1t
throughout your generations may
prove to be prophetic of the perpetuity
of our Memorial Day.
when all the veterans shall have
answered the last call and have been
mustered out, then these Sons of Vet
Grams will perpetuate the day and be-
queath it as a glorious heritage to
their posterity, from generation to gen.
Grafton, until we shall respond to the
reveille in the morning of the resur-
rection
with the passing years the men,
ory<of the veterans will become more
precious and their dust more sacred to
those for whom we saved the Republic.
Moses states the meaning of all me-
mortal days in these words of the text:
When your children shall say unto
YOU What mean we by this service?"
Ye shall declare ii unto them Me-
mortal sermons are to explain unto our
children the meaning of Memorial Day,
and thus prepare them for its imposing
services.
THAT day is to honor our comrades
who fell at our side in camp, on the
march, in the hospital. and on the bat
tle-field. We revere their memory. We
would rescue their names from obliv-
ion. cherish their valor, recount their
deeds, perpetuate their fame, decorate
their tombs, protect their widows and
orphans and guard their sacred dust.
con fame's eternal camping ground.
Their silent tents are spread;
And glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.
''The muffled drums sad roll has beat
The soldiers last tattoo,
No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
with the dawn of Decoration Day,
from city and village, from hillside and
valley, will be seen the young, the old
and little children bearing the rarest
flowers that tender hands and loving
hearts can gather, to strew them upon
the soldiers grave.
Floral offerings, bouquets, anchors,
wreaths, crosses and crowns, the low
iI-g tribute of a grateful people will be
brought into requisition. Wives and
children of those sleeping heroes will
be there to venerate the memory of
their loved ones.
"And the surviving, war-scarred vet
eran, some with empty sleeve, some
bowed down with disease or wounds,
will be there Hands that never trem-
bled amid the roar of artillery and the
rattle of musketry viii tremble with
emotion as they Law their loving tri-
butte upon a comrades grave. Cheeks
that never blanched as they faced that
cleaning, advancing line of bayonets
VIII turn pale on Decoration Day.
"a grateful, loyal public will be
there all who love the flag, that prize
liberty, whose bosoms pulsate with
patriotism, will be there to do homage
to those whose lives were the sacrifice
that purchased the liberty they enjoy.
But for those lives yonder flag
would not float SO proudly in our har-
Dor those stars would not be in that
galaxy, the Union would have been
dismembered and the clank of the
bondsman's chain would still be heard.
What mean we by this service? We
men that but for those graves. and for
the living veterans, liberty would have
persisted from off the earth, free gov
eminent would have been a demon
strated failure, there would have been
no American Republic and no Hawai-
ian Republic But there would have
been the auction block. Human lives
would have been held as property;
souls would have been sold into sla-
very; husbands and wives, parents
asunder: the lash of the slave-driYer
would still have caused the blood to
flow from the back Of the slave, and
freemen would have been turned into
bloodhounds, by the law. 10 drag back
To the master the hondsman who fix