The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1902-06-05

w c'oAAibSNOh l. OolS IColNSlll MUSE
welt said:
1t is a good custom for our country
to have certain solemn HOLIDAYS in
commemoration of our greatest men
and the greatest crisis in our history
There should be but few such holi.
days. To increase their number is to
cheaper them. Washington and Lin.
coln-the man who did most to found
the Union and the man who did most
to preserve it-stand head and shoul-
ders above all our other public men,
and have by common consent won
the right to this prominence.
Among the holidays which COM
memorate the turning points in Amer
lean history Thanksgiving has a sig
nificance peculiarly its own. On July
4th we celebrate the birth of the ma
ton; ON this day, the 30th OF May, we
call to mind the deaths of those who
died that the nation might live, who
wagered all that life holds dear for
the great prize of death in battle,
who poured out their blood like water
in order that the mighty national
structure raised by the far-seeing pa
triotism of Washington, Franklin,
Marshall, Hamilton and the other
great leaders of the revolution, great
trainers of the constitution, should
not crumble into meaningless ruins.
You whom | address today and
your comrades who wore the blue be-
side you in the perilous years during
which strong, sad, patient Lincoln
bore the crushing load of national
leadership performed the one feat The
failure to perform which would have
meant destruction to everything
which makes the name America a
symbol of hope among the nations of
mankind. You did the greatest and
most necessary task which has ever
fallen to the lot of any men on this
western hemisphere.
During our four generations of ma
tional life we have had to do MANY
tasks and some of them of far-reach-
ing importance; but the only really
vital task was the one you did-the
task of saying the Union. There were
other crisis in which to have gone
wrong would have meant disaster;
but this was the one crisis in which
to have gone wrong would have
meant not merely disaster but ami
hilation.
You left us reunited country. You
left us the right of brotherhood with
the men in gray, who, with such cour-
age and such devotion for what they
deemed the right, fought against you.
But you left us much more even than
your achievement, for you left us the
memory o. how it was achieved. You
who made by your valor and patriot
ism the craftsmanship of Lincoln and
the soldiership of Grant, have set as
the standards for our efforts in the
future both the way you did your
work in war and the way in which
when the war was over you turned
again to the work OF peace. In war
and in peace alike your example will
stand as the wisest of lessons to us
and our children and our children's
children.
WAR IN PHILIPPINES.
Just at this moment the army of
the United States, led by men who
served among you in the great war, is
carrying to completion small but
peculiarly trying and difficult war, in
which is involved not only the honor
of the flag, but the triumph of evil
cation over forces which stand for the
black chaos of savagery and barbar-
ism. The task has not been as diff
cult or as important as yours, but, oh,
my comrades, the men in the uniform
of the United States, who have for
the last three years patiently and I'M
complainingly champioped the Amer
lean cause in the Philippine Islands,
are your younger brothers, your sons.
They have shown themselves not I'M
worthy of you, and they are entitled
to the support of all men who are
proud of what you did.
These younger comrades of yours
have fought under terrible difficult
ties and have received terrible provo
cation from very cruel and very
treacherous enemy.
Under the strain of these provoca-
tions | deeply deplore to say that
some among them have so far for
gotten themselves as to counsel and
and commit, in retaliation, acts of
cruelty. The fact that for every
guilty act committed by one of our
troops hundred acts of far greater
atrocity have been committed by the
hostile natives upon our troops. or
upOH Illo pcdCedOlt dlu law -dDluluS
natives who are friendly to us, can
not be held to excuse any wrongdoer
on our side.
Determined and answering effort
must be made, and is being made, to
find out every instance of barbarity
on the part of our troops, to punish
those guilty of it and to take, if pos
sible, even stronger measures than
have already been taken to minimize
or prevent the occurrence of all such
instances in the future.
From time to time there occur in
our country, to the deep and lasting
shame of our people, lynchings, car
ried on under circumstances of in
human cruelty and barbarity-a
cruelty infinitely worse than any that
has ever been committed by our troops
in the Philippines; worse to the vic
tins, and far more brutalizing to
those guilty of it.
The men who fail to condemn these
lynchings and yet clamor about what
has been done in the Philippines are
indeed guilty of neglecting the beam
in their own eye while haunting their
brother about the mote in his. Under
49, L