Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1900-05-01
Grant Holds Place With Lincoln
and Washington as Re-
CARDS True Greatness.
THE IRON DETERMINATION OF GRANT
other Civil War Generals Were as Bril-
liant as He but Nome Possessed
HIS TenacIty and FixIty OF
Purpose-Exercises.

Galena, ILL.,, April 27-(B~ Associated
ed Press. 1.-The town is full of people
today in attendance upon the Grant.
celebration. Governor Theodore Roose-
yelt,of New York, is the orator of the
day. A mammoth parade of veterans
of the Spanish-American and civil wars
was held this forenoon. and at the
Turner hall this afternoon was held
/ the memorial exercises. After the call
to order by Hon. John C. Spare, and
songs and invocation, Governor Roose-
welt spoke as follows:
In the long run every great nation
instinctiyely recognizes the man who
peculiarly and pre-eminently repre-
sents its own type. Here in our coun-
+ Try we have had many public men OF
the first rank-soldiers, orators, con-
structive statesmen and popular lead
ers.a We have also had great philoso-
piers who We're also leaders of popl-
lar thought. Each one of these men
has had his own group of devoted fol-
lowers, and some of them have at
times swayed the nation with power
< such as the foremost of all hardly
I, wicked. Yet as the generations slip
+ away. as the dust of conflict settles
and as thru The clearing air we look
back with keener vision into the ma
tons past, mightiest among the
mighty dead loom the three great fig
uressof Washington, Lincoln and Grant.
There are great men also in the sec
& ond rank; for in any gallery of mere
1Vy.. ,cfi IL:
& Nton, jefferson and jackson would
surely have their place. But these
three greatest men have taken
their place among the great
men of all nations, the great
men OF all times. They stood supreme
In the two great crises of our history
on the two great occasions when we
s stood in the van of all humanity and
struck the most effective blows that
have ever been struck for the cause of
human freedom under the law; for
than spirit of orderly liberty which
must stand at the base of every wise
movement to secure to each man his
rights and to guard each from being
wronged by his fellows.
Washington fought in the earlier
struggle, and it was his good fortune
\ TO win the highest renoun alike as sol
4 dier and statesman. In the second
& and even greater struggle, the deeds
of Lincoln, the statesman, were made
good by those OF Grant the soldier, and
later Grant himself took up the work
that dropped from Lincoln's tired
Y hands when the assassin's bullet went
home and the sad, patient, kindly eyes
were closed forever.
1t was no mere accident that made
our three mightiest men, two of them
soldiers and one the great war presi
dent. 1t is only thru work and strife
that either nation or individual moves
on to greatness. The great man is
always the man of mighty effort, and
usually the man whom grinding need
has trained to mighty effort. Rest and
{ peace are good things, are great bless
q ings, but only it they come honorably;
and it is those who fearlessly turn
away from them, when they have not
been earned, who in the long rum de.
3 serve best of their country. In the
sweat of our brows do we eat bread,
and tho the sweat is bitter at times
yet in the long run it is far more bit
ter to eat the bread that is unearned
lnwon, undeserved America must
nerve herself for labor and peril. The
men who have made our national
greatness are those who faced danger
and oyercame it, who met difficulties
4 and surmounted them, not those whose
paths We're cast in such pleasant plac.
es that toll and dread were ever far
II from them.
N ither was it an accident that our
three great leaders were men. who
while they did not shrink from war
were nevertheless heartily men oil
Il peace. The man who will not fight tic
avert or undo wrong is but a poo,
creature; but after all he is less dan
gerous than the man who fights or
the side of wrong. Again and AGAR
in a nations history the time may, ant
indeed sometimes must come, whe,
the nations highest duty is war. Blu
peace must be the normal condition, OF
the nation will come to bloody doom
Twice in great crises, in 1776 and 1861
and twice in lesser crises, in 1912, ant
in 1898, the nation was called to arm.
in the name of all that makes tn,
words honor, freedom and justice 9th
er than empty sounds. On each occa
sion the net result of the war wa
greatly for the benefit of mankind
But on each occasion this net result:
was OF benefit only because after TIL.
war came peace, came justice and or
der and liberty. Ii. the Revolution ha,
been followed by bloody anarchy, i
the Declaration of Independence hat
not been supplemented by the adop
tion of the constitution, if the indie
pendence won by the sword of Wash
ington had not been supplemented b
the stable and orderly government
which Washington was instrumental il
founding, then we should have but add
ed to the chaos of the world and gu
victories would have told against an
not for the betterment of mankind
So it was with the civil war. If tn
four iron years had not been followet