Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-05-22


| AS heroes they died, and as heroes they
| live for all time on the page of history and
| IN the hearts of a grateful and united peo-
pie.
we. members of the National Society of
| the Colonial Danes of America. represent
| ing the original thirteen colonies. in hon
! oring the noble deeds, the patriotism. the
| self-sacritice of our ancestors. now do hom-
| age to the same virtues in these heroes Of
our own day. who were alike faithful to
duty, to their country and to their God,
I'm raising this monument. our tablet
reads, as a tribute in sorrow. gratitude and
| pride we present it to our government at
| Washington. which so graciously conferred
the honor upon us, a patriotic society. of
! placing it in these sacred grounds of Ar
| lington.
May our beloved country. in her unity
and strength, in her prosperity and peace.
| in her vast undertakings and great achieve
ments. ever merit the protection and bless
| ing of the God of our fathers
President Roosevelt's Response
With the words May our beloved coun-
i try the white veil dropped from the mon
| ument and its simple beauty was disclosed
| to the assemblage. Instantly the hillside
| rang with handclapping and cheers and
! the whole grandstand arose to inspect 1t
| carefully. When the President had re-
| garded it intently a few moments he
/ turned to the throng beside the shaft and
began his address. He spoke earnestly and
| confidently, but was manfestly much ar-
! fected. and was many times interrupted by
| applause.
Mrs. President and members of the So
| clety, and you, my comrades he began
! with wave of his hand toward the Span
| lsh War Veterans beside the grandstand,
| and finally. officers and men of the regu-
| lar army, whom We took as our models in
! the war four years ago:
1T is pleasure to be here this afternoon
| to accept in the name of the nation the
monument, put up by your society to the
| memory of those who fell in the war with
Spain; short war; war that called for
! the exertion of only the merest fraction of
the giant strength of this nation; but a
war the effects of which will be felt
through the centuries to come. because OF
| the changes 1t wrought. 1t is eminently
appropriate that the monument should be
| unveiled today, the day succeeding that on
which the free republic of Cuba took its
place among the nations of the world as a
sequel to what was done by these men who
fell and by their comrades in rs.
A Specific Purpose.
I'VE went to war for a specific purpose
We made for Cuba a specific pledge, and
We redeemed that pledge to the letter And
l think. my comrades of the war, that we
have peculiar reasons to be proud of one of
our fellows who served with us in that
war. and under whom, during the last
years Cuba has been: under whose admin
istration Cuba has taken those strides for
ward which have fitted it to stand alone
I speak of General Leonard Wood. And
great though the services were that Cen
eral Wood rendered during the war they
have been surpassed by the ineStimable
service he has rendered in peace to Cuba,
and therefore to our nation, for our inter-
est was bound up in the success and well
fare of Cuba.
And word here where we meet to honor
the memory of those who drew the great
prize of death in battle, word in reference
to the survivors. / think that one lesson
every one who was capable of learning any
thing learned from his experience in that
war the Old old lesson that we need
to apply in peace quite as much-the lesson
that the man who does not care to do any
act until the time for heroic action comes.
does not do the heroic act when the time
does come. You all of you remember. my
comrades, it is barely possible some of you
remember being the man who. when you
enlisted, had a theory that there was moth
ing but splendor and fighting and bloodshed
in the war, and then had the experience at
once of learning that the first thing you
had to do was to perform commonplace du-
ties and perform them we'll.
Where Duty Calls.
II remember one time in my regiment a
young fellow who had come down to fight
for his country. complaining that he had
been doing nothing but digging kitchen
sinks, to which the answer was obvious
that he was to so on digging kitchen sinks
And the work of any man in the campaign
depended upon the resolution and effective
intelligence with which he started about
doing each duty as it arose; not waiting
until he could choose the duty that he
thought sufficiently spectacular to do; doing
the duty that came to hand. That is exact
ly the lesson that all of US need to learn in
times of peace. 1t is not merely a great
thing but an indispensable thing that the
nations citizens should be ready and will
ing to do for it at the time of need, and no
preference for that other quality could
atone for the lack of such readiness to lay
down life if the nation calls. But. in addi-
ton to dying for the nation, you have got
to be willing and anxious to live for the ma
ton, or the nation will be badly off. If you
want to do your duty only when the time
comes for you to die, the nation will be de-
prived of valuable services during your
lives.
And now gentlemen, am speaking in all
seriousness. l never see a gathering of
this kind; / never a gathering under
the auspices of any of the societies which
are organized to commemorate the valor
and patriotism of the founders of this
ton; never see gathering composed of
the men ready to have volunteered in time
of war or who fought in the great civil war
or in any of the lesser contests in which
this country has been engaged, without
feeling the anxiety to make such a gathering
realize, feel, each in his or her neart the
all-importance of doing the ordinary hum
those duties arise. Some of the effect on
the day of battle is to be found in the ag-
gregate of the individual performances of
duty during the long months that have
preceded the day of battle, and the way
in which a nation will arise to great
crisis is conditioned upon the way in which
it's citizens have habituated themselves to
act in the ordinary affairs of the national
life.
Fitted for Service.
you cannot expect that much will be
done in the supreme hour of peril by SOL
diers who have not fitted themselves to
meet the need when the need comes, and
you cannot expect the highest types of
citizenship to be shown in the periods
when it is needed If that citizenship has
not been trained by the faithful perform
ance of ordinary duty. What We need most
in this republic is not special genius, not
unusual brilliancy, but the honest and up
right adherence on the part of the mass of
the citizens and of their representatives to
the fundamental laws of private and public
morality, which are now what they have
been during recorded history and we shall
succeed or fail in making this republic