The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1898-05-14
TRIBUTE TO GRANT.
Watterson's Eulogy on the Work Of
the Great General.

Watterson's Eulogy on the Work Of
the Great General.
The anniversary of the birthday
of Gen. U. s. Grant was celebrated
at New York April 9th with BAN
Quet at the Waldorf-Astoria under
the auspices of the Grant Monu-
ment Association. :.
Col. Henry Watterson was one OF
the guests and in response to the
toast, "The Reunited Sections"
Col. Watterson said:
"If the illustrious soldier whose men,
ory we celebrate were with US here to-
night his heart would glow with satisfied
pride in the answer which time has made
to his prayer for peace between the once
warring sections of the union and in the
spectacle which the present unfolds OF .
whole people rallying as single man
beneath the star lowered flag Of the re-
public.
~ can not 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 we're perpe-
trated by the people of the United States
the latter half of the nineteenth century.
It was a mistake of the North, after the
overthrow of the Confederacy, to under
take q reconstruction of the union by
force of arms. That the country has sur
vived errors Of such magnitude is proof
of amazing vitality; of vitality that
draws its sustenance from the adaptability
and the flexibility of free institutions and
from a popular character equal to all
emergencies, military and civil.
sit was Gen. Grant himself who issued
the order finally withdrawing the troops
from the Southern States, and, when we
remember that it was none other than
Grant who stood between the Confederate
soldier and surrender that might have
been dishonoring to American manhood,
the debt we owe to our great captain be-
comes incalculable.
"There is just now, l regret to observe,
q disposition manifested in certain quar-
ters to magnify the arts of peace and
to belittle the arts of war. have
respect for the principle of international
adjustment through moral suasion and
mutual concession. But am grown SO
pessimistic, indeed, as to think that the
one thing that we do not want, the one
thing which would certainly disapDoint
us in case we got it, is the dreamer's idea
of the ideal. The rich, red blood of pa
ture, which makes men to act, and to act
promptly, in times of danger, is good
enough for me; and l know nothing in
American history more celebrating than
the episode of old Peter Muhlenbergh.
finging aside his surplice and appearing
in full Continental uniform, exclaimiDg,
There is time for all thlngs-a time to
preach and time to pray-but there is
also q time to fight, and that time has
comet
NATION UNIT.
"If there was any doubt anywhere about
the restoration of the union, not merely
in fact and in came, but in the spirit to
which it owes its birth, the manifestations
of the last few weeks cannot fail to dissi-
pate it. That Spanish gentleman who
proposed to supplement the forces of his
country in Cuba by melting the South to
another rebellion must surely have been
the Knight of La Mancha come to life
again, but quite as bereft of reason as lie
was in the days of Sancho Panza and the
lady of Toboso; though, in truth, most of
those supporting Spain in her ll-starred
contention seem to he lineal descendants
of the famous Don! Sir, the reunited
sections of the union stand q wall Of iron
between the nations honor and, if need
be, all the world; stand wall of fire
between the stricken CubaDs and any
furthur hurt from Spain.
"We want no other warrant for our act
of war than the cruel, the heartless story
of the Spaniards in America. From the
coming of Cortez and Pizarro to the going
of Weyler-three centuries of brutality,
irradiated only by the pirates lust for
plumber and the tigers thirst for blood
each succeeding Captain General has
seemed to emulate Alva as rival of Sa-
tan by seeking a second immortality OF
damnalion. Before such an array, histor-
zeal and contemporary, the true American
neither consults his geography nor counts
the cost His pulse-beats are the same
in Massachusetts and in Mississippi, and
whether the band plays yankee Doodle
or "Dixie" is all one to him! Assuming
that in ordinary times it takes but few
months and change of raiment to con.
vert typical Vermonter into a typical
Texan, 1t has taken but few weeks to
impress upon the reunited sections of the
union the truth that We are the most no.
mogeneous people on the face of the globe
that such differences as exist among us
are local and external, and not skin deep
and, along with this lesson, to reawaken in
all hearts Decatur's ringing words: Our
countrY-may she be ever in the right