The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1898-05-05
THE REUNITED SECTIONS.
Speech of Henry Watterson at the
Grant Birthday Banquet in New
York City.


the Grant birthday banquet Of Astoria
hotel. in New York, on the 9th inst,
was a fitting theme at time when
the only hero that the Cuban diff
culties has produced is an ex-Con-
federate General.
In response to the toast. The Re-
| united Sections" Mr.. Watterson
said:
If the illustrious soldier, whose
memory we celebrate. were with us
here tonight, his heart would glow
with satisfied pride in the answer
which time has made to his prayer
for peacs between the once warning
sections of the Union and in the
spectacle which the present unfolds
of whole people rallying as single
man beneath the star-flOwered flag of
the Republic.
Il cannot help thinking that,
when the history OF our generation
comes finally to be made up, it will
first order were perpctrated by the
people of the United States the latter
| half of the Nineteenth century. 1t
was a mistake of the South, for any
cause whatever, to preclpItate war
of sections, and it was a mistake OF
the North after the overthrow of the
Confederacv, to undertake recon-
struction of the Union by force of
arms That the country has surviv-
ed errors of such magnitude is proof
of amazing vitality: of vitality that
draws its sustenance from the adapt
ability and the flexibilitv of free
institutions and from popular
character equal to all emergencies,
military and civil. Man proposes
| and God disposes, and often we build
wiser than we know. Perhaps the
very mischances of these forty years
| Of domestic controversy were need
full to make us the nation we are to-
| day.
1T was General Grant, himself,
| who issued the order finally with
drawing the troops from the Southern
| States, and, when we remember that
| it was none other than Grant who
| stood between the Confederate sol
der and a surrender that might have
pttIl W ivan
hood, the debt we owe our great
Captain becomes incalculable.
'.There is Just now, | regret to
observe, a disposition manifested in
certain quarters to magnify the arts
of peace and to belittle the arts of
war. Most of us know something
about both: and, whilst | do confess
that even this frugal repast and
these homelv provisions-done in
Grants honor and in our hope-are
preferable to a banquet of hard tack
and blazing brushheap upon a
Georgia hillside, | shall not be the
man to say that any of us is the
worse for knowing from personal eX-
perience the actual difference. |
have respect for the principle Of
international ad lustment through
moral suasion and mutual conces-
sion. I have respect for the princi
pie of approved capability and fitness
in the matter of appointments to
office. But when a gentleman in
goldrimmed specs and swallow
tailed coat, standing with one foot
| on Arbitration and the other upon
Civil Service Reform. solemnlv as
sures me that he has discovered per-
fectibility in Government, l take
leave to have my doubts about it. |
am grown so pessimistic, indeed, as
to think that the one thing that we
do not want, the one thing which
would certainly disappoint us in case
we got it. is the dreamer's ideal.
Ideals, which exist for Reformers.
lovers and poets, exist not for men
and women. Those whose business
it is to deal with life as it is, and
who can afford to waste no time on
self-deceptions, address themselves
to the real, not to the ideal, and feel
that they are fortunate if they come
off with whole bones. The rich, red
blood Of nature, which makes men to
act, and to act promptly, in time of
danger. is good enough for me; and
know nothing in the episode of old
Peter Muhlenbergh, finging aside
his surplice and appearing in a full
Continental uniform, exclaiming
there is a time for all things-a
time to preach and a time to pray
there is also a time to fight, and that
has come
III there was any doubt anywhere
about the restoration of the Union,
not merel y in fact and in name, but
in the spirit to which it owes its
birth, the manifestations of the last
few weeks can not have failed to
dissipate it. That Spanish gentle
man who proposed to supplement
the forces of his country in Cuba by
melting the South to another re
bellion must surely have been the
Knight of La Mancha come to life
again, but quite as bereft of reason
as he was in the days of SanchC
Panza and the lady of Toboso: though
in truth. most of those supporting
Spain in her illstarred contention
seem to be lineal descendants of the
famous Don. Sir, the reunited sec
tions of the Union stand wall OF
iron between the Nations honor and
if need be, all the world: stand a wal
OF fire between the stricken Cuban:
, and any further hurt from Spain
We want no other warrant for ou1
act of war than the cruel. the heart
less story of the Spaniard in America
From the coming of Cortez anc
8 plzarro, to the going of Wevler-
three centuries of brutality, irradiat
ed only by the pirates lust for plum
r der and the tigers thirst for blood
: each succeeding captain general ha
, seemed to emulate Alva as a rival o
. Spain by seeking a second immortal
tv of demnation. Before such al
/, array. historical and contemporary
the true American neither consult
his geograpy. nor counts the cost
His pulse-beatS are the same i,
l Massachusetts and in Mississippi
r and whether the band plays "Yanke
3 Doodle OF Dixie" is all one to him
) Assuming that in ordinary times i