The Newtown bee., 1900-06-15

it is the custom on this day to utter some psnegyric on the blessings of peace, to describe great and happy land now knowing no North and South, but bask- ing in the sunlight of beautiful peace, and sending up devout thanksgiving to God that this land, by dreadful experience, has at least learned one lesson well, that, whatever be the uncertainties of the fu ture, the different sections of this land will never take up arms against each other, never, never, never. This is the custom on Memorial day, I say; but so we'll aa know how, am going to pro- nounce panegyric this morning on the blessings of war.
 Of course war is at all times dreadful thing. No clearer testimony is needed on this point than the testimony of the graves. Go to Arlington Heights to day, go to the battlefield of Chickamauga, go to Gettysburg with it's hundred memorial shafts; and each grave is voice that speaks to you. It speaks to you of forced marches; of miserable rations; of months of wasting fever in the hospital :; of lying down in the marshes, with no covering above but the great pail of dark ness, with no light around but the twin kling stars. Every f1ag.marked grave on next Wednesday morning will say to the veteran who, with fl overs to strew, stands above it, and the veteran will hear the voice all too we'll: "Brother, it was terrible; who will tell the anguish? who will count the tears?" And not the graves alone bear testimony on this point, but men who still live among us, who for many long year have been battling with some painful disease or those who go hobbling about on their crutches. Widows tell the story; those. left in help less infancy to breast the buffetings of the world, say to ua, because of the fierceness of the struggle they have passed through,
 1.-THE WAR WAS TERRIBLE.o As men come to the sunset years of life the passions that burned in youth grow less fierce and the bitter fe elings which then stirred their souls soften into emotions of pity and love. So those wbos fought on both sides in the war, 35 years after it's close, forget that they were enemies in the greater thought that they ars brothers and :"Oh, the pity of it allr
 War is terrible thing; but as there are many things worse than death, so there are many things worse than war and, above all, worse than just war. He is the worst sort of 8 coward who pleads for peace because he is afraid to go to war. He is the most wretched miscreant who, to save himself the discomfort of standing squarely for stern principles, patches over worn-oute garments with baleful compromises. There is pretty general testimony on the point that the representatives of this country such influence in the Peace Conference at The Hague and were so powerful in their advocacy of peace because our Na- ton had just come out victorious from it's wsr with Spain. The man who has the true courage of his convictions does not lie down and die rather than take the field as their champion. We forget who were the worst enemies that the North had during the Civil War? Those who contended against it, face-to-face, upon the battlefield? An, no for even though the lowest depths of hate were deeply stirred, there was 8 certain admiration for the bravery of those who, whether fighting for the Union Cause or the Lost Cause, fought 50 nobly and so well. It was American pitted against American, and hence there never were fercer bat ties in any war. The worst enemies the North had were the speace-men," those who skulked at home. those who, under pretense of working for peace, dealt the foulest blows at the Nations heart.
 "Tell the traitors all around you
 That their cruel words, we know,
 In every battle kill our soldiers,
 By the help they give the foe."
 Rightly were these sspeace-men'' call d tCopperheads." !" like the snake, the very symbol of guile and deception. These .speace-men' called the war & failure. They did everything they could to op- pose 1t. They inaugurated the bloody draft riots. They insulted women. They burned orphan asylums q have this on good authority) as protest against the war and as showing of the side on which they stood. Ard what would have hap pened if these sspeace-men" could have had their way? Why, the history of this country during the latter part of the 18th century and the first part 0f the 2Oth