The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-05-11

people may we'll take pride, that during
all the great progress and advancement
of our country, including the armed
contest of last year, and which am
glad to say now appears to be happily
ended, no section of our land has been
more devoted to the cause of our coun-
try and to uphOlding its honor and
prestige than the people of the southern
states.
Those upon whom rests the cares,
duties and burdens of government have
encountered no embarrassmentS or COM
plants or criticism from southern
states None of their brave volunteer
regiments have asked to be returned
from fields of active duty and when the
request has come from governors of
other commemorative, volunteers from
the southern states have promptly
begged for the honor of filing their
places in the front of battle.
THE position in which the American
people find themselves today was not
sought by them, but is the logical result
of conditions thrust upon the country
by a course of events beyond our con-
troll. If it be said they were foreseen
and predicted, it must also be admitted
that no power in our grasp could have
stayed the tide and now we stand be-
fore the gaze of civilization confronted
by grave responsibilities. The supreme
test of American institutions is involved.
and the American system of govern
ment is on trial.
1T is said by some that while Eng
land, Holland, France and other nations
may extend a protecting hand to peo-
pies and lands separated from the home
country benefiting both the protector
and the protected, that we shall be ut
terly unable to accomplish such pur-
pose. To admit this proposition, is to
admit that our system of government
is lacking in the essential qualifications
which every sovereign power should
possess. In one year we have risen to
the first place in the family of nations;
to make the smallest retrograde step,
would be at the expense of the prestige
we have won. To return to the starting
point of a year ago, would be to lose
what it would take a century to regain.
In answer to those who say that the
policy of our forefathers forbade the
extension of territory, 1 would point to
Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase,
and the vast territory acquired from
Mexico, and later to Andrew Johnson
and the acquisition of Alaska.
IF there be any who contend that we
should not permit the island of Cuba
to become part of the United States,
and its people if they desire it, to enjoy
all the rights of American citizenship,
l have only to point to the official
declarations of our great statesmen
commencing with Thomas jefferson
and running through almost the entire
period of the first half of this century.
During all that period our honored
statesmen and presidents from Jeffer-
son to Buchanan laid down in their
messages and state documents, the i'm
of the Antilles part of the United
States"
In concluding his address General
Wheeler paid an eloquent tribute to
the women of the south and the part
they bore in the war and the dark years
that followed, saying:
Although some of those blessed wo-
men are still with US, many more have
long since gone to their reward, but
they have rocked in cradles the prin-
ciples, minds and characters which are
to control the future of their beloved
land. The thought which I wish to inn
press upon the minds of the genera
ton to whom we must soon intrust a
sacred charge, for the confederate SOL
diers race is nearly run, and the in
junction which L would leave with
your sons and daughters-for the
daughters have the nObler part, and 1
know they will faithfully perform it
is this:
See to it that the women of the con-
federacy have, in their posterity,
monument more lasting than any that
could be built of stone"