The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-05-31

| 4NSiSHpOlS anu iiCiidSf AiCiOS, " sAAS
Civil War-I beg to address you as your
Chief Executive. 1t is my pleasure on this
occasion to present as the orator of the
day our old, tried and true friend, the
Hon. William McAdoo. He was born and
bred among US and by loyalty to his
friends and constituency has advanced
himself to positions of honor and trust
among our fellow countrymen. 1t is with
pride that present him as one of the
ablest and most representative sons of
New Jersey. He will tell you in his own
style of the causes which led to this glof
ious and reverentia. celebration"
Mr.. McAdoo was given a very warm well
| come when he arose to speak. His ora
ton was as tollows:-
| Mr.. President Ladies and Gentlemen
| l congratulate you and your committee
/ on the judicious selection of this statue:
The educational effect OF art cannot well
be measured, especially on the mind of
youth, and, indeed, unconsciously, we are
all affected by those familiar objects in
| art and architecture, which, seen fre-
Quenty, affect the mind. Better no at
| tempt at art than those wretched things
that make the judfcious grieve and smite
| caricatures. good memorial statue
| should not only recite history but help
! to make it. 1t was only a few days ago
that the greatest of living Americans-Ad-
miral Dewey-confessed how he was, as
boy, awed and inspired by the statue
of Ethan Allen in the State. House of
greatest triumph would be to have his
| own in the same building. May this
tasteful and inspired representation of the
| war power of the great Republic, as ex-
| emplitied in the heroism and sacrifice OF
| New Jerseys best and bravest, long
stand, here, to, teach, uplift and elevate
/ youth who come and go around its base.
The figure represents successful war.
/ Most. strange indeed that in republic
founded on the highest ideals of justice
| and equality there should have been so
| many and bitter struggles on those en-
sanguined fields, where what Mars. sows
| In blood and night Minerva reaps in the
! light and dew of morning. To maintain
| those immortal principles of the Declara-
ton of Independence-equalit freedom
and justice-the sword has blazed fiery
| path for truth, and truth most impotent
| without the arm of valor would have
sunk to earth to rise only in the slow
| processes of evolution, and freedom have
been postponed beyond our day and kin,
! The teachings of our history seem most
ulous men, who, in their honor of arms,
| affected or real, assert that moral ideas
and great truths require neither arms,
| forts MOI. ships. "A log with an Amer
| lean fiag," said successful politician in
! my hearing in Congress, lis all the navy
we need" Let US hope that in some
! great crisis these statesmen will take in
| the logs. The fathers of the Republic
| were afraid of militarism and their chill
| dren share their prejudices; but what was
| the militarism which they feared? Was
| it seen in those downy faced young men
/ from shops and farms that we saw last
/ summer thronging to the nations stand
ard? Suffering all diseomforts,, making
| Hill in the hot tide of American chivalry
| and irresistible valor, and then quietly
| returning to the obscure walks of Indus
| trial life? Was it the fine spirit of the
disciplined and invincible regulars who
sang the national anthem amid the he'll
| of war under the whitening heat and poi
sonous breath Of a tropical summer? Was
| it not the militarism of the old world
when the conscript was forced to arm
kin and neighbors? THE pen IS mightier Ter
| than the sword because so often the pen
has conjured up the sword to act, which
| then quietly abdicated its power to the
pen again, preferring holy peace to
| bloody ambition. In a nation threatened
with an inundation of ink and language
shall not the act be as honored as the
word? In world of word mongers and
ceaseless chatterers and scribblers shall
| not the modest heir in the uniform OF
the Republic have place with tffe shin-
| ing multitude of our orators and penmen,?
| Won't kind Heaven permit General
| Funston of Kansas and Manila to live on
the same earth with the great Atkinson
| of Boston?
am confident that speak for the brave
men of 81 to whom this monument IS
primarily due when / say that they glad
" share its glories with the brave men of
| '9S, and in return 1 know I voice your SEN
| timentS when say to them that the glor-
les of the present have not dimmed in any
| degree our memory of their long and bril-
| liant struggle to preserve the nations life.
/ We are the immediate beneiciarieS of
their sacrifices, but all humanity is their
debtor to the end Of time. The American
Civil War was the gigantic and awful
| struggle for universal freedom, humanity
and the highest civilization. In its awful
fires the vested wrongs of thousand
years were destroyed and it scattered to
the winds the cruel dogmas which pillared
foul wrongs reeking with the crimes of
centuries. 1t still threatens every throne
and menaces every barbarism, and while
| it made for liberty and freedom, it was
for freedom and liberty marked by order
and an . co conserved by law, The bead roll Of
| sacred relics in the temple of liberty.
i Has any war so vindicated its partci-
pants, SO honored those who upheld the
| Justice of its cause? Did any war ever re-
4 pay in the splendor of its results, the col
ossal sacrifices it occasioned? The wars of
| ambition have ended in long nights of
humiliation, disaster, blood and exile; the
| ashes of hope buried thesimperial splen-
dor of a Napoleon. The wars of conquest,
| wantonly undertaken for conquests sake,
have plunged the conqueror into abysmal
CULTS of failure and disgrace and became
"the direful spring of woes upnumbered''
to both but this war for national life and
unity, for holy freedom, for light and life
and love for the human race, for an in
vincible and regnant American leading the
| world to the greatest heights of progress
JUSTICE ana truth, Tor the ennODl1nS dig
nifty of human labor, this war covered the
| graves of its victims both North and
| South with the sheaves of It's blessings in
| richer and richer harvests.
/ The Civil War was inevitable. Able
orators GRATED, able preachers preached
| and our vast army of ablest writer's
| wrote, while the cunning hands of our
| statesmen drew up spidery compromises
| in the secret conclaves of party but that
calm, majestic thing which some men call
destiny, In awe and some in sarcasm,
| pushed its imperial way to the goal and
marshalled the hosts for the greatest,
| most bloody and most far reaching of
| wars The hot. chivalrous, but mised
South drew her sword, and in the long
track of shining apd bloody war Drawer
| sword was never drawn. The children of
Hagar, the bondwoman could not live in
4 the same political household with the
] children of Sarah, the freewoman The
fierce tides of opposing civilizations were
met in wild uproarious clash beyond the
Potomac. Under the blue Virginia sky
out leaped from it's scabbard the sword
of Lee, but not the sword of an Alex
4 ander, a Napoleon or demigod could
i block the American Republic on the path
way of national unity and universal pro-
gress, to that regnant place among the
nations of the earth that has marked the
years from Gettysburg to Santiago. The
dogged persistence of the great North
under that Captain of Captains, the great
and immortal Grant, made sure that the
valiant and impetuous could not stand
the awful pressure of the men and re-
sources of great industrial people who
1<x~~ m. a. H. f&,e3