The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1901-11-27
LOYAL LEGION.

quet at the Van Ness House, Burling-
ton, ON Tuesday evening, which took
the form of memorial for the late
President Mckinley, who was mem
Der of the order.
The principal address was by Sen
ator W. p. Dillingham;, who paid an
eloquent tribute to the late President.
Senator Dillingham; said i'll part:
"This is not the time or the occa-
sion for an analysis of the public life
and character of President McKin-
ley, nor for an estimate of the place
he will occupy in history. We prefer
at this time to speak of him rather as
one of that large number of distin-
guished citizens who have defended
the honor of our country in time of
war and who have ministered to her
prosperity and greatness i'll time of
peace. We think of him as we do of
our Presidents Lincoln, Garfield,
Hayes, and Harrison, and as we do of
our Governors Proctor, Farnham,
Barstow, Pingree, Ormsbec, Wood
bury and Circuit, as a soldier citizen,
Il soldier statesman. We love to re
member him as he was, lofty in his
conception, chivalrous i'll his bearing,
broad and generous in thought, man
ly in action, whose heart and brain
were in full accord, and whose death
has brought mourning to eighty mil
lions of his fellow citizens.
"The glory of our nation has been
in the character of our people and
Of our institutions and of our citizen
ship. The relations of sovereign and
subject were discarded by the fathers,
and there has come up new civiliza-
ton based upon a government by the
people, i'll which there is an equality
of privilege as well as of obligation,
and under which talent has full OPP
portunity to expand, and genius to
assert its power. The foundation of
our citizenship is one which implies a
common interest, . common purpose,
a common end, and which fully rec
ognizes a common obligation on the
part of all to maintain even to the
point of sacrifice the benefits of self
government. 1t is citizenship which
for century and quarter has sue
cessfully met and solved every great
problem affecting the welfare and
prosperity of the nation. 1t is
citizenship so perfect in type and
so resourceful in character that we
have never been dependent upon
standing army to preserve either our
peace at home or our honor abroad
Even i'll the trying days of the CO.'S,
when all the powers of darkness were
put i'll operation to arrest the triumph
ant march of true democracy and to
Danish from the earth a government
by the people, there was no lack either
of loyal hearts or strong hands or
abundant means to carry on the great
contest. Who can comprehend the
extent, the scope of that momentous
contest, covering an area three times
greater than that of Great Britain
and Ireland and France and Germany
combined, as large, i'll fact, as that
of all Europe, Russia alone excepted
employing in actual warfare armed
men, the flower of the nation, greater
i'll number than the entire population
of the colonies at the time of the rev.
olution, i'll which the sacrifice of hui
man life was made by more than a
third of million of men, conducted
at an expense so enormous that com
parsons fail to indicate it's vast pro-
portions? And yet the nation thrived,
swords were beaten into plowshares,
the vast armies melted away into
peaceable and law abiding inhabitants,
each better citizen because he had
been a good soldier, and of all the
great leaders not one was tempted to
assume imperial or dictatorial powers.
"Of this citizenship President Nc
Kinley was the highest and most per-
feet type. Beginning his career as a
private soldier III the defence of the
life of the nation, ending it as its
chief magistrate, loved and trusted by
all.
"What was the underlying principle
IL. e.. Al G. l.
success? Was it because of great in
tellectul power? or a great develop
ment of the moral faculties? or was
it combination of both? The circum-
stances under which he came in to
the world were not unlike those sur
rounding thousands of our youth who
are cursed neither by abject poverty
nor by great wealth. He was blessed
with sound body and sound mind /;
he came of honest stock, of parents
who had convictions which they lived
up to he inherited tendencies toward
that which was right and impulses
which were manly and noble. 1t was
but natural that with such nature
and with such an inheritance and
with such instruction there should
come into his young life that peculiar
experience i'll respect of religious
things which not only has remark
able developing influence upon the
moral powers, but which, giving new
views of life, quickens the intellect
and sets III operation forces which
dominate ones future. A right con-
ception of the fatherhood of God and
the brotherhood of man is a revela-
ton, greater and more impressive to
the young perhaps than to the old,
and one that reveals to him principles
which are eternal in duration and
which are the leavening power of the
Kingdom of God III the world. This
awakening came TO Mckinley in the
midst of that remarkable period just
previous to the war of the Rebellion
when the conscience and intellect of
the nation were in their fullest oper-
alton, when men realized that the
progress of government and the
maintenance of free institutionals was
in the balance, and when in order TO
preserve our liberties tremendous re-