The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-05-31

| Rev. T. W. Jeffreys, of Winfield:
Today we stand with tear-stained faces
| to the past. Our eyes sweep fields of
carnage and blood red with recent slaugh-
ter, sulphurous with smoke OF battle.
| CHASTITY with suffering and purple with
death. We would not look at them at all
if love did not prompt it, and If love did
not hold US by it's spell. We would turn
| away to fairer fields baptized with dew
| and flooded with light, and gaze until our
| souls could drink their fun Of glory but
love for our brother and friend, falling,
mangled, torn, upon this other field where
| Death rides a conqueror and smites at
| win, makes it more inviting to US. We
| look and look until the head turns dizzy
| and the brain can hardly bear to look
again. There is reason for il. The child
| We hold in our arms with heaving breast,
| rising and falling like the waves of the
| sea, with dimpled hands catching at sun
| beams that fall aslant through open case
nent. with eyes of tender blue dancing
like stars about the midnight throne, in
joy and delight to US, and we embrace
him with arms that throb with love and
| kiss him with lips that burn with the
there are times when we are willing to
| leave this charge of our heart and wend
cur way over the dusty highway to the
| quiet graveyard where little mound
| with flowers Of purple and gold upon its
crest is secreted among the trees, and
| there in solitude that overwhelms US We
think of that dreary night when the rain
fell and the wind blew, how another little
one was torn from our heart. o, there is
world of affection in the widowless
| home OF death. And for the same reason
| that we leave this healthy, laughing
child, TO drop a tear upon the grave Of
| our deed we turn from the present to
look at the past It holds much for us
much of sorrow and joy. The patriotic
heart thrills as it recounts the scenes Of
heroism and the deeds of daring, heroic
resolve. Today we are at the graves Of
the nations heroic dead. They fill the
land from north to south, from east TO
west In every hamlet and village, in
every town and city of our common coun-
! try, death has torn the faded coat of blue
from the shoulders of the American SOL
der and followed him out a tomb. His
| heroic ashes lie buried in the shifting
sands Of yonder gulf, in the malarial
marshes of Georgia and Florida, all over
the sunny fields Of the south, in the pine
forests of Maine; they billow the prairies
of the Dakotas, they are to be found in
| the mountain districts from the valley
clear to the lien of unfading snow. They
/ are everywhere. Some of them sleep be-
| Meth monuments Of bronze and marble,
and some of them sleep in unknown,
sunken graves, with tangled briars arch
ing their sacred dust, but they are alike
to us today-they are our heroic dead
The whole nation bows in sorrow. 1t
forgoes it's business for one day in the
years to pay tribute to its defenders. 1t
forgets for a time the cares of the hour
that it may laurel the tombs Of its heroes
Well it may. It owes them much
Mighty America is their monument; its
history their apotheosis. They met the
shock of invasion They threw back the
embattled hosts. They carried their all to
the harvest and havoc of battle. They
put the stars OF the nations, flag with the
stars of heaven. They saved the Union,
and made the progress Of all the closing
| years of this old century possible.
All honor to the patriotism of the Amer
lean soldiers. living or dead. If living
flowers for his brow; if dead, flowers for
his grave God bless them. every one.
We do not hold malice at this hour-we
are not any longer divided. The mngiing
Of our blood at FL Caney and San Juan
and Cardenas Bay has effaced the past
and bound the sections together by ties
| stronger than steel, stronger than those
unseen cords which bind he planets to
their central sun.
We can hardly, in justice to reason or
! conscience. lay the blame of their inter
necine strife at the door OF any one man
or any one generation. 1t developed from
conditions that antedate the birth Of the
| nation. It became cancer with roots
reaching into many states, within given
section threatening other sections OF the
! Union. 1t was wrong, radically wrong.
and no nation could long exist with such
| an evil gnawing at its heart. The ques-
! ton as TO the balance Of power between
| the free and the slave states. led 10 ser
| ious opposition of views The news OF the
| brutal and inhuman treatment in the
south reached the north and kindled fires
| of animosity that nothing could put out
but seas of blood" At first the south
did not take kindly to slavery and re-
I
after living with ii and growing rich by
| It. they, learned TO love 1t and defend It
! from the pulpit and printing press, and in
the halls of congress.
Uo5n this followed the second com
promise Then followed the repeated as
sertson that the nation must not inter-
fere with the domestic concern Of the
south but at its peril. This doctrine was
supported By John Randolph, Hsyne and
/ Calhoun with this came the question q
,sa constitutionanty Of the tariff which
! split north ard south into tao hostile
! camps. It deepened and widened the
/ chasn which mad existed for years. Seces-
! sion was now threatened Calhoun was
/ the nlouthpiece Of his native state and
/ succeeded in filing all the south with his
! poison. The civil war rested in his brain
I and the south owes TO him as TO no other
man, the disaster which befen IL II the
north the auti-slaverv society ag1tated
/ matters without; providing remedies.
With the election OF Buchanan 10 the
presidency. Buchanan that s1ronter q
morality who tortured the constitution 70
- his viii the south IN every way "a
easy victor under his ADMINISTRATION,
/ favorable in every way TO the south, op-
( pa-suuity was improved 70 destroy the
+ power q the government Loyal soldiers
/ were FASTENED srou. southern sslds ard
j ths military supplies were placed in posi-
( ttoa 10 fall into tbs hands Of the serest-
/ $NS@SN s0SS@S
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