Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-04-27
A Lesson in Civil War For
Anti-EXpanSioniStS.
TRIBUTE TO GRANT
Expansion Has Come to Stay
Whether We Wish It or
Not, and We Cannot
Run Away From It.

Galena, ILL.,, April 27.-General y. s.
Grants birthday was observed here TO-
day. The event has been celebrated an
nually for ten years with some speaker
of national reputation as an orator, but
the celebration today was on q more
elaborate scale than heretofore. Cover
nor Roosevelt Of New York delivered the
principal grafton. Nearly every business
block and hundreds of private residences
were ablaze with flags and bunting.
special train bearing Governor Roose-
welt, Mrs. Nellie Grant sartoris, her son
Captain Sartoris, her daughter Vivian
Sartoris and other distinguished visitors,
arrived from Chicago shortly before the
exercises began at Turner hall. After q
few introductory remarks by President
Spare, Rev. DR.. J. W. Spensley Of AL
bany, N Y, delivered. the invocation.
Then after the song I'm Liberty's
strength which we are apt especially to
Roosevelt was introduced amidst ap-
plause. He spoke in part as follows:
In the Union armies there were gener-
ais as brilliant as Grant but none with
his iron determination. This quality he
showed as president no less than as
general He was no more to be infiu-
enced by hostile majority in congress
into abandoning his attitude in favor of
a sound and stable currency than he was
to be influenced by check or repulse into
releasing his grip on beleaguered Rich
mond. 1t is this element Of unshakable
Mysteries of this kind may have all
allude when we praise a man in the most
effective way, by praising him as man.
1t is the one quality which we can least
afford to lose. 1t is the one quality, che
lack of which is objectionable In the
nation as in the man. It is the antithesis
Of levity, fickleness, volatility, of undue
exultation, of undue depression, of hys-
terra and neuroticism in all their mild
forms. The lesson of unyielding, un-
flinching, unfaltering perseverance upon
! the course upon which the nation has en-
tered, is one very necessary for gener-
alton whose preachers sometimes dwell
overmuch on the policies Of the moment.
There are not few public men, not a
few men who try to mould opinion within
congress and without, on the stump and
| in the daily press, who seem to aim at
instability, who pander to and thereby
increase the thirst for the over-state-
ment Of each situation as it arises, whose
effort is accordingly to make the people
move in zigza instead of In straight
| line. We all saw this in the Spanish
war, when the very men who at one
time branded as traitors everybody who
said there was anything wrong in the
army and at another time branded as
/ traitors everybody who said there was
anything right. OF course such an atti-
| tude is as unhealthy on one side as on
the other, and 1t is equally destructive
of any effort to do away with abuse.
Mysteries of this kind may have all
the results of extreme timidity. A ma
ton that has not the power of endur-
ance the power of dogged insistence on
a determined policy, come veal or woe
has lost one chief element of greatness
The people who wish to abandon the
Philippines because we have had heavy
skirmishes out there, or who think that
our rule is a failure whenever they dis.
cover some sporadic upgrowth of evil
would do well to remember the two long
years of disaster this nation suffered be.
fore the July morning when the news
was flashed to the waiting millions tina,
Vicksburg had fallen in the west anG
that in the east the splendid soldiery OF
Lee had recoiled at last from the low
hills of Gettysburg. Even after thi:,
nearly two years more We're to pass be-
fore the end came at Appomattox
Throughout this time the theory Of thu
prophets of disaster never ceased. Tht
peace at any price men never wearied o.
} declaiming against the war; or describing
the evils of conquest and subjugation a!
worse than any possible benefits tina
could result therefrom. The hysterica
minority passed alternately from un
reasoning confidence to unreasoiing de
spair. and at times they even infectes
for the moment many Of their sober
steady countrymen., Eighteen months
after the war began the. state and. con
gressional elections went heavily agains
the war party, and two years later th
opposition party actually waged th
presidential campaign on the issue tina
the war was a failure, Meanwhif Their
was plenty of blunderjng at the front
plenty OF mistakes at Washington. Th
country was saved by. the fact that OF,
people as a whole were .steadfast aud un
shaken.
Both at Washington and at the from
the leaders were men of undaunted res