The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-08-28


of the civil war there is owing great
er debt of gratitude than to any others
Great were the deeds you did and vital
the need of doing them.
MANY were the lessons taught the
rest of us. both by what you accomp-
lished in the war and by the way in
which, when the war was over, you
turned to the work of peace with the
same spirit which had led you to trl-
umph on the tented fields. To you alone
it was given to face with victorious
valor the one crisis in which not mere
ly the nations well being but the ma
tion's life was at stake To you II
was given to solve the one problem
which if not solved Alright meant death
for our people. All of the work of the
men who founded this republic would
have gone for nothing had you not
done your part. 1t would have prof1ted
little to us or to mankind at large II
the experiment of free government by
the people and for the people had been
founded upon this continent only to go
down in bloody wreck on the question
of slavery You saved the union and
you freed the slave and thereby freed
the slaves master from the worst of all
thraldoms.
There was no money reward for
what you did. There was hardly one OF
you who did not during those four years
receive far less than he could have
earned in safety at home. But you were
driven to your work by the lash of your
own hearts. You were spurred onward
by the life which only comes to PEG.
pie of good and generous soul. You felt
instinctively that there were causes far
greater than anything that had to do
merely with wealth or bodily we'll be-
ing. You were willing to wager all for
the prize of death in righteous war.
I'VE are now in a time of abundance,
peace, and not in time of war. But woe
to us if in peace we do not have ideals
as lofty as yours and If we do not live
up to them as you lived up to yours in
the dark days of defeat and in the gold
en- glory of the hour of triumph.
Among the greatest benefits of what
you did was the fact that you have
also left US the right of hearty and
loyal comradeship with your gallant OPP
ponents who in fighting for what they
conscientiously deemed to be right,
fought against the stars in their course.
Besides what you actually did, besides
the reunited country, the undivided ma
ton which we have received at your
hands we have received also the lesson
of the doing of the deed. There is a
great need now that we should show if
not in degree at least in kind, the spirit
that you showed. We need in order sue
cessfully to face the difficult and COM
pick problems of our Industrial civili-
cation, all the courage and loyalty and
all the faith and clear sighted sanity
and purpose which there are at our
command.
Above all we need to learn Alright and
to apply the great lesson of brotherhood
which you taught and practiced in the
four grim years that began with Sum-
ter and ended with AppomattOx. In the
old simple America of our forefa theirs
the America which still for our good
fortune exists in country districts-there
was comparative freedom from certain
dangers to which the country as whole
is now necessarily exposed. The growth
of great cities and of individual and cor
porate fortunes-the tendency in great
cities to divide men into groups and
| classes-naturally diminishes the re-
alization of that essential underlying
brotherhood which ought to be deep in
| the heart of every American. Looking
| into the mists of the future we see
| dark problems looming up before US
| We can solve those problems right only
| if we keep constantly in mind that each
must work for all and all for each. In
| other words. we need to feel in our
| being the sense of brotherhood
| At the conclusion of his address thl
president returned to his train and
| started back to Concord