The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-01-02
brave but undisciplined troops in the

brave but undisciplined troops in the
great art Of war.
The modest tableau of our past mas
faded away. We no longer are specta-
tors but actors in the great game OF
war. Whether from our own fault OF
from manifest destiny we must now en-
ter the exciting war councils OIL the
globe. 1t is not for US to see China
partitioned without saying word IL
is no longer the ''Yonker" who has
made money and taken care of the farm
at home. It is the Alexander who
with proud step comes to the front
Il saw young Harry with his beaver
on" While these thoughts reverberate
and mingled tears and smiles greet the
dailv bulletin, 1--WE shall live on bulie-
tins for the rest of this year, perhaps,)
il does no hurt to listen to the voice OF
the past. l had the pleasure to talk
to a veteran an Englishman, aged 81,
the other evening, and he told me now
as a boy of five he remembered wa
terloo. He, with his little brother OF
three. in a window seat in London,
fought the battle over again, he as 30
new and his brother as Sir Arthur,
when he put his little elbow through
the window pane, at which his father
was very angry, and gave him a GOOD
trouncing-one that Bonaparte would
have remembered But the little boy
saw London illuminated for the great
victory and now in a very wonderful
old age he remembers that above MS
pain.
From Waterloo to Santiago! from
reluctant tarNV
guns to that splendid triumph Of mod
ern gunnery which Schley led off-Wnat
a long road! Here between it lies our
own bloody war for the Union, and now
strange it is that in all our wars France
has sympat hized with us only on hef
aristocratic side. The Reds have never
been our friends Louis Napoleon Sc
cretly tried to ruin us, but the Count &c
Paris came over to help US, and new
republican France turns against us.
1.-The most difficult problem to solve IS
why people do things" If we go to
the right, we may wish we had gone
to the left. The future is not ours to
read:
The smiling harvest hides it's growth of
We idly fortifv against ill-fate.
Calamity to most comes unawareS,
The throne of grace our sole protector
ate.
To my great regret 1 find that all
men love war. and all nations respect
it. 1t must be in the life of every great
nation; but peace, the worlds best
friend. has been driven afar, and grim
visaged war. in peacock's plumes, has
paid us a visit. 1t is the mother of
great thoughts and heroic dreams 1t
swept away the grimace of Horace
Walpole, the sneer of Bonaparte and OF
Byron. 1t will sweep away much in
ferior literature. So learned q man as
Professor Norton should have thought
of that
And these reverberations at West
Point have carried with them many a
mistaken ambition; many a foolish pre-
JUDGE, many an idle gossip. What are
they worth when old Cronest sends
back an echo to forty-four guns! There
is no finer music than that march COM
posed on the Death of Hero and
its composer said that in it he only
tried to echo a funeral gun.
There are no more beautiful stories
or poems in the world than those at
tributed to old soldiers. He who sits
resting his wounded leg and allows his
grando hildren to climb up the well one
that man talks poetry. And Why
Because selfishness was eliminated
from his experience; he tells only of
what he saw that was patient, gener-
Gus and powerful. He speaks with the
wisdom of a philosopher of his own ser
vice. He gives the honors of victory
to his chief. All those complex decep-