The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1902-06-06

lustrious name of Robert E. Lee. He
did as much as any man to heal the
wounds opened by the war and to re-
store the era of good feeling whose
warmth and glow flood us to-day as if
bathed in the mellow richness of June
sunshine.
Lee was a 4 American; let us
This name. Let us say, with
Daniel Webster: "Americans we are;
Americans we shall live, Americans
we shall die" The world never saw
such war as our Civil war because
Americans fought on either side. The
loss on the Union side at Chancellors-
vile, 1900; the loss on the Union side
at Fredericksburg, 1000; the loss on
the Union side at Cold Habor, 1900;
the loss on the Union side at Gettys-
bury, $4,000; the loss on the Union side
in the battles of the Wilderness, 49,
600. What moved down those ranks?
What heaped high the windows of the
fallen and filled to overlooking the
hospital wards? Men, my brethren,
men who carried thoughts on their
Ebayonet-points and who sent out prin-
ciples with their rifle balls.
Heroes every one! Read the muster
roll. Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Far
ragut, Foote, Hooker, Hancock,
Thomas, Mcclellan, Meade, Butler
the roll is not complete. Lee, J. =.
Johnston, ''Stonewall" Jackson, Early,
Beauregard, Stuart, Joe Wheeler,-are
they not Americans all? To-day, then
recall the past; tell the story. It's a
good thing to recall the past. Do you
wish to know how these liberties
which we enjoy were secured? Read
the past. Do you wish to see the fin
ger which points out the way we shall
take in the futurea Look to the past.
Do you sigh for the old days and la
ment the degeneracy of the days into
which we have come? Bury yourself
in the annals of the past and, read; i'm
partially it's shadows and it's dark lines.
Il READ THE PAST OF OUR FLAG.
1t has not always given you the lesson
that it breathes out to-day. At first it
spoke only one word, the word Liber-
ty. When that was acco mplished, it
spoke of confederacy of States loosely
joined together; then it broadensdi the
thought into Union. Now it denied
! the right of search for Amernan YES
Esels; again it said, "Slavery shall not
extend over another foot OF the terri
tory of the great West" Now it said
to the oppressed of. every cline,
Come, and to the one who had no
helper: "Here is the refugee" it pro-
claimedithat the gates had been thrown
| wide open, the gates which Isaiah said
never should be shut. Last Tuesday
we furled our flag on Moro Castle and
cheered the Cuban colors> then our
| flag spoke this message, ''This is a ma
tion which keeps it's word;: the plighted
faith of our martyred. Mckinley is
made true.''
To-day the lesson that, we read on
our flag IS expansion. 1t came not
from the shock of arms: that was only
the occasion for it. 1t was not a
mechanism; it was what Kidd called
the intensity of national life: you could
no more Stay its coming thanyou could
turn back the hands on the clock of
the ages. When people near our shores
had for long centuries been held in the
prison house of tyranny and wrong,
God Almighty suddenly took a hand
and broke the hinges and unlocked the
prison doors. Did you ever think of it,
that this is the only continent in
which the mountain chains run north
and south? What does this mean? 1t
means that North and South America
are one, indisso1ubly joined. The re-
publics, half a score, struggling after
ideals which their rude origins make
impossible Of accomplishments, lying
all about us, will some day strike hands
with us, as between these two great
oceans we erect 'the greatest contin-
uous empire ever established by man, "
developing the most.poweTful type of
man the world has ever seen.
see picture of the coming time.
Fifty years hence the fleets of the
world are converging, ever converging
toward the harbors Of the Caribbean
Sea. The grassy hilltops shake out a
welcome to the world s commerce as it