The age-herald., 1901-04-11
THE CONFEDERATE DEAD.
Why Memorial Day Should Always Be
 Observed.

From the New Orleans Times Democrat, April 6.
 | None of the ceremonial functions which we are in the habit of celebrating in | these southern states in the course of the | year Is more incumbent on us as a duty, | or is performed with greater reverence
 of feeling and genuineness of devotion
 than the decoration of the graves of the Confederate dead on April 6.
 We honor ourselves in remembering the Confederate dead, and in bearing an an- nual tribute of flowers to their final rest
 ing place; for 1t was our cause, as well as their own, for which they fought, for which they bled and for which they died Surely, therefore, they are worthy of monuments, and of yearly ceremonies, like these grave-decorations, to commem- crate their heroic performance of what their conscience told them was right, and to attest at the same time the fond recol- lection that are cherished of them a gen. eration after the close of their grand, If unsuccessful, struggle.
 These annual decorations, moreover, are not meant for the present hour and for the present generation alone. They are meant also to instil into the minds and into the hearts of those who will come after us when the last Confederate Veteran shall have answered his final roll-call, and all of us who were born in time to see or to hear of the war shall have crossed into the land of eternal night-to instiI we say. into the minds and hearts of those who come after us the same deep reverence for that sacred Lost Cause" with which the South will never in thought cease to associate itself, and the same unchanging admiration for those gallant Confederate soldiers who sealed their devotion to that cause with their blood. It is a duty, in short, which we of the present day, removed just a geenration from the internecine struggle, owe to our children, and which they in turn will owe to their children-to keep alive the memory of this sacred cause, as 1t were a Vesa's fire in the shrine of our innermost hearts, to preserve that memory and the memory of the heroes who championed it, and to pass it on to posterity a legacy of priceless value.
 A people are purified and elevated by periodical indulgence in the recollection, the re-enactment of grfefs that have gDawed and of suffering that has left It's scars The wounds it is true, bleed afresh on the occasion of every re-enact- ment, but Is healthier flow that comes with every opening. There is less and less of venom to exude each time-less of any selfish, vindictive feeling, more of sanctified altruism and ennobled spiritual life. Therefore it is we'll to have fixed occasions for mourning.
 It would perhaps be too much to say that the people of New Orleans are never seen to so much advantage as on day of general mourning, like this day of the decoration of the Confederate graves; but they are seen to decided advantage on such day. They are all day long. as 1t were under an awesome pall-a pail crim- soned a generation ago with the blood of their nearest and dearest ones; and the solemnity of their manner, evidenced both in word and act. betokens the force with which that pail overshadows their hearts, Strangers have noticed in this community on this Decoration Day the still and sol emn demeanor of the people, the absence of the ribald laugh and the drunken shout; and they have put 1t on record that we are not altogether a frivolous people, but that we are at bottom thoughtful, and even. religious, peo- pie.
 There will be the usual march of the Confederate Veterans today from Memo rial Hall to Canal street. whence they will ride to the cemeteries There they will visit the graves of their dead com rades, and afterwards will be addressed by Captain James Dinkins of Mississippi himself one of their number--and will have the benediction pronounced by the Rev. B. M. Palmer, D. D.