The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1897-04-29

Take as an example the celebration
in New York this week. Gen. Grant S
tomb is practically complete; these
days will witness its dedication and
transference and care to the city of
New York. Thousands of sOldiery and
hundreds of thousands of citizens will
be gathered near it for a few hours;
martial music and imprisoned
speeches will thrill the hearers; and
then the great crowds will melt away,
each individual returning to his pleas
ures or burdens, leaving the tomb to
its mOtiOnless vigil over the dead.
Scenically the tomb is unique. twill
always be one of the notable features
of the city, raised in fOrceful shape
where neither houses nor commerce
can ever hide it from view either by
land or by water, and unnumbered
living and those yet to live will come
to it to gaze and pass on. Some will
see in it less of grandeur than is pos
sessed by the mausOleum of Hadrian
in Rome, after which it seems I'M
doubtedly to have been modelled;
others will admire its stern, square
simplicity, standing alone and I'M
moved amid the restlessness of the
tides before it and the turmoil of the
city behind it; few will think of Grant
as a real person and see in his tomb
the spirit of the man who endured
hard duties quietly, met disappoint-
ments quietly, enjoyed triumphs qui-
city. 1t seems to me that all this
pageantry and pride is the very last
thing Grant himself would have APP
proved; the thought of being idly
stared at by sight-seers would have
disquieted him.
The encouragement he gives us or
binary individuals is great on every
point. He was not a brilliant man
but he was a forceful persistent one,
who just tried to do right and if I'M
successful just tried again. The thing
that seemed duty to him he would
follow through thick and thin with
the resentlessness of Death. His great
ness consisted in doing one thing well
and that the thing he was best fitted
to do.
1t is no derogatiOn from his useful
ness as a model for the average life to
say that he ceased to be really great
as soon as the rumble of battle had
died down. At that moment he rose
to the zenith of magnanimity, when he
declared Let there be peace!o when
he returned the horses to the van
uuished officers because they would
need them for blowing; and when he
forbade either music or signs of eXul-
tatiOn in the Northern Army while
the arms of the Confederates were be
ing stacked. From this time on he
was a very ordinary man; a poor judge
of human nature while President; a
hasty man in connection with one or
coloizing schemes, San Domingo, es-
pecially; a poor business man in as
sOciating himself even in name with Il
hare Drained gambling plan.
Yet like the light of eventide after
a day of storm, which seems to call
back all the possible glories of the
hour that are past, his sublimity of
character re-asserted itself when the
doom of death had been pronounced
upon him. His last three months
were grand in the extreme. Not even
the long struggle of wounded Garfield
with death could equal Grants forti-
tude. Fully conscious that the angel
whose behests he had followed in the
time of war, had now come for him;
painfully aware of the shattered for
tune he seemed forced to leave; ner-
vously sensitive to the ignominious
effect brought upon his life by those
whom he had trusted in his unbusi-