Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1899-06-02
THE SOLDIERS DAY.
MEMORIAL OBSERvANCES IN MIDDLE
BURY REHEARSED.

Hon. ID. j. Foster Delivers the Address of
the Occasion-The Usual Cemetery EN-
i'm Church and schools.
Notwithstanding the threatening
weather with which Decoration day be-
gan and the showers which marked it,
the exercises of the day were carried out
very successfully and the attendance
was good. The arrangements were so
carefully made that no hitch occurred in
the program, which was substantially as
published in last weeks REGISTER.
The address of the day by Hon. D. j.
Foster of Burlington, took place in the
town hall in the afternoon and was heard
by large audience with marked appre-
citation. lie spoke of the significance of
Decoration day, recalling the part Yer
mont took in the civil war. Those left,
he said, are but waiting for the last
muster out, yet not as they were at Cedar
Creek, or when the Vermont brigade
stemmed the tide, or when the mines of
Petersburg were placed, or when Potter
and Reynolds called on the new but
valiant 18th, or when the 1st Vermont
cavalry outrivaled the famous charge at
Balaklava. For their story you must go
TO where the Vermont's statue of Stan
nard stands, the last point reached by
The enemy and where the subject of
that statue and his Nermonters rolled
back the tide of civil war, and to Fred
ericksburg, and still later the episode of
C..1 IL
oar Drawing a raging current in leaky
boat and making prominent the names of
Andler and Rooney. But we are
missionaries of constitutional govern
ment, he continued, and duty is i'm
posed upon us. We are proud of our
lineage, yet above nationality is human
ity. The Jews have kept intact for -
centuries, the Greeks eXcelled in litera-
ture and art ages ago, and the Romans in
law government but the English out
rival the Greeks and overshadow the
Romans and we are their heirs and rep
resentatives, the missionaries of cOnsti-
tutional government, illustrating the
parliament of man and human progress.
What eliminated at AppomattoX was
reaflirmed in few weeks last year. The
reunion of the country in duties and
responsibilities again brings into sig
nifcance the object of the great father of
his country, his monument meaning
something here as that of Nelson, the
hero of Trafalgar, does to England and
Luther to the German Empire. This Is
to be new century and there is need
of more perfect union. There is vet a
lack of unifying principles. We are
getting neighborly, China today is
nearer than Boston was 100 years ago.
Turkey and even Spain are also neigh
bors. Unilcation is seen under the
union jack of England, in Germany, in
Russia; and following the events of the
times, France is ambitious and the four
are working for the possible and prob
able absorption of the world. But re-
Gently there has come a union of more
than four score millions of people and a
nation is made proud by worthy son of
Vermont at Manila. All the work is not
yet done. Even if the names of Wash
ington and Cromwell and Luther and
Caesar and Saint Paul be on the list, we
will be there with Ethan Allen and his
Green Mountain men and Stannard with
his Nermonters, the one establishing and
the other perpetuating the grandest
nation the sun ever shone upon.
At the close of the exercises In the
nall, the procession was formed headed
by Marshal Walter Martin and aids,
followed by drum corps, Chief Engineer
+. R.IStone and Assistant John Boudreau,
Battell Hose company, Volunteer Hose
company, Col. a. S. Tracy Camp, No.
%, Sons of Veterans, and William II.
Russell Post No. 50, G.. A. Il. Pro-
ceeding to the West cemetery, the ritual
detail.