The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-04-28

Union and i'm the spectacle which the
present unfods of a whole people rally
ing as a single man beneath the star
lowered flag of the Republic.
| cannot help thinking that, when the
history of our generation comes finally
to be made up, it will be related that
two mistakes of the first order were
perpetrated by the people of the United
States the latter half of the nineteenth
century. II was a mistake OF the South,
for any cause wha tever, to precipitate
war of sections, and it was a mistake
of the North after the overthrow of
Confederacy, TO undertake a reconstruc-
ton of the Union by force of arms.
That the country has survived errors
of such magnitude is proof of amazing
vitality; Of vitality that draws its
sustenanCe from the adaptibility and the
flcXibilty of free institutions and from
Il popular character equal to all emcr-
gencies, military and civil. Man pro-
poses and God disposes, and often we
build wiser than We know. Perhaps the
very mischances of these forty years of
domestic controversy were necdful to
make us the nation we are today.
1t was General Grant, himself who is
sued the order finally Withdrawing the
troops from the southern states, and,
when We remember that it was none 9TH
er than Grant who stood between the
Confederate soldier and d surrender that
can manhood, the debt We owe our great
Captain becomes incalculable.
THE ARTS OF PEACE AND WAR.
There is just now, 1 regret TO observe,
| a disposition manifested in certain quar-
| ters TO magnify the arts of peace and
| to belittle the arts of war. Most of us
| know something about both; and,
whilst / do not confess that even this
| frugal repast and those homely provi-
| sions in Grants honor and in our honor
| are preferable to a banquet of hard tack
| and a blazing brush-heap upon Geor-
| gia hillside, | shall not be the man to say
| that any of us is the worse for know
| ing from personal experience the aC-
| tual difference. | have respect for the
| principle of international adjustment
| through moral suasiOn and mutual con-
| cessiOn. l have respect for the principle
| of approved capability and fitness in the
matter of appointments to office. But
| when a gentleman I'm gold-rimmed specs
| and a sWalow-tailed coat, standing with
| one foot on arbitration and the other
| upon Civil Service Reform, solemnly as
| sures me that he has discovered per-
| fcCtibility in government, | take leave
to have my doubts about it. am grown
| so pessimstic, indeed. as to think that
| the one thing that we do not want, the
| one thing which would certainly disap-
| point US in case we got il, Is the dream
! er's idea of the ideal. Ideals which eX-
| list for refOrmers, lovers and poets, eX-
| list not for men and women, Those whose
business it is to deal with life as 1t is,
| and who can afford TO waste no time on
self-deceptionE 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 "a
| act promptly in times of danger, is good
| enough for me, and / know nothing in
| American history more eXhilarating than
| the episode of old Peter Muhenborgh
flinging aside his surplice and appearing
| I'm full Continental uniform, eXclaiming
"there is a time for all things-a time
to preach and a time TO pray-but there
is also a time TO fight, and that time has
| come"