The Pacific commercial advertiser., 1897-05-31


bgrandest monument the world has ever
seen. They not only decorate their dead
and living heroes, but they stretch
out their great arms of love and pro-
lection. gather to their breast the SOL
diers' orphans of the land, school them,
feed them, educate them, until they
stand today the brightest jewel in the
diadem of their country's glory.
During the dark days of the rebellion
the loyal people of the North and the
soldiers of the Union Army relied upon
Abraham Lincoln as their savior, and
believed his promises as they believed
in God; and when the sympathetic
Lincoln, kneeling at the bedside of
dying soldier in a hospital pledged
this Government to "care for him who
should have borne the battle. and for
his widow and orphan" the dying
soldier knew the promise would be re-
deemed; and that knowledge cooled
his throbbing brow and soothed his
dying hour. May the spirit of Lincoln
and the hands of our great and mighty
dead guide, control and prosper the
good work thus delineated by the mar
tyred president.
Comrades, to us this day these cere-
monies have an added sacredness as
the years go by. Each recurring Dec
Grafton Day finds new mounds to gar
land with flowers, our ranks are thin
ming; the comrade with whom we
touched elbow last year is missing
familiar voices no longer answer to
TOll-call, we march not so steadily, nor
with such Soldierly alertness as of
yore, and our voices are not so CHEEKY
as when we went marching through
Georgia.
After a well-a little while
we too. shall enter the camp beyond
the confines of this grand old earth,
where the roll-call is heard but once.
and the term of enlistment is for eter-
nifty; then may flowers still bloom.
may our memories be kept as green
and as sacred as we keep these. And
now let us take up our grateful work,
strew our sweetest flowers, for these
who lie beneath the green turf, thus
covered with flowers, are worthy of
our most touching acts of love and
sympathy.
yes. cover their graves with beauti-
full flowers,
Well deck them with garlands, these
brothers of ours,
Lying so silent by night and by day,
Sleeping the years of their manhood
away;
Years they have marked for the joys
of the brave,
Years they must waste in the sloth
of the grave;
All the bright Iaurels they fought to
make bloom
Fell to the earth when they went to
the tomb;
Give them the need they won in the
past,
Give them the honor their merits fore
cast,
Give them the chaplets they won in
the strife
Give the laplrels they lost with their
life;
Cover them over, yea cover them
over,
Parent and husband and brother and
lover; q
Let us crown in our hearts these he
Toes of ours,
And cover them over with beautiful
flowers"
My friends, as we walk among the
graves of our comrades today and
reverently bow head and knee over the
lowly hillock, and bedeck with flowers
and bedew with tears the turf which
grows nowhere else so green, we can
feel the touch of unseen hands, we can
hear the voices none others hear, we
are enchanted-oYerawed, We are
alone, yet in the innumerable company
of silent men, as if dwelling among the
tombs. The old days come back to us;
they are all young men, leaping, laugh
ing, marching, singing, shouting and
fighting. Now all is still. We can hear
the rustic of the old flag as it floats in
the breezeS today, so it rustled and
rolled above us over third of a CEN
tury ago; as the cannon and musketry
OF the battle then accentuated its ryth-
mic flow and flash of war as it glanced
across its glorious folds. The stars
glow as brightly in its beautiful blue
its stripes stretch out in its graceful
billowy, restless length as grandly
still; but the young hearts that then
beat below all it's majestic motion and
music, are now still in the grave, and
the undersong of it's graceful and melo-
dious roll is requiem of the glorious
dead who fell asleep by all their
country's wishes blessed" God of bat
ties, why should not these young men
be with us today? Why should they
not enjoy the music of the Union? For
if we measure time by the results
achieved by them, and of which they
were not permitted to live and see the
full fruition, we know that these he
roes helped to force the hands that
marked the progress of civilization full
century ahead. Why should they not
be here? Why should not the sewers
of this mighty breadth of blessings be
among those who garner up the
sheaves in the red harvest of war?
Enough; so God willed it; and the
bright and glorious flag floats on for
all and over all, and on this sacred
Memorial Day let us bless God for our
country, its constitution and it's glori-
GUS flag, founded by our sires. and
saved by the valor and the heroism of
the boys in blue.
The roll-call of the dead was a most
mnrpGSiUo Torf of ho