Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1902-06-06
THE UNION FOREVER
Webster's Prophecy Realized by
Valor of Our Soldiers.
Champ C1nr1s's Tribute TO the yetcr-
ans of the Civil wnr-No Sec
tionnlism in Dccora-
tion Dny.
Especial Washington letter.

II Capltal! HOW ullleTenJ bue
scene from year to year, as
viewed through the eyes of one who
has loved the soldiers of the civil war
from childhood to manhood.
There is naught but gayety here now;
whereas until 20 years ago, there was
naught but sorrow or solemnity. 1t
was when the sun of life began to de-
scend the declivity of human expert
ence that the writer first noticed the
decadence of national sorrow for the
heroes whose graves represented the
patriotism of u great people.
To-day there is scarcely tear shed
over the graves of any of the soldiers,
although millions of people honor
their deeds by visiting our thousands
of cemeteries and placing floral offer
ings upon the sod which swards all
that is left of them. There used to
be quoted universally the sentiment:
"Cheers for the living; tears for the
dead" But that must now give way to
the everlast ting sentiment: For the
soldiers of the union, living and dead,
nothing but cheers"
Within the memory of the writer,
on Decoration day it was not fitting
that any one who had not seen and en-
dured the awful panorama of tragedies,
the battlefield, should deliver the ad-
dresses. But now their vigor has
gone, and the eulogies are pronounced
by tn sons of veterans, or those who
love and honor their memory. Soon
the grandsons of veterans will perform
the functions of pride and patriotism.
Even in this day and generation there
are mature men of eminence who
know of the civil war only by reading
history, just as they read of the his
tories of other wars hundreds of
years remote. Congressman Champ
Clark, of Missouri who spent his baby
hood and boyhood on the confederate
side, has some views of that war, which
he eloquently expresses as follows:
II speak for the generation which
was too young to participate in our
civil war. L was only IL years old
when the first gun was fired at
Charleston, and now my head is
blossoming like the almond tree.
will tell you how 1 regard that awful
struggle, and how the generation to
which l belong looks upon it-as n
most heroic chapter in the annals of
mankind. l read English history as
the prologue to American history.
When / reflect upon the civil wars
in England, my judgment is with the
stern, unfaltering, pious Roundheads,
who, at Worcester, Marston Moor
and Dunbar followed the great Oliver
into battle shouting: God with us!'
But my soul is fired with the recol-
lection of the chivalric deeds of those
gallant knights and loyal gentlemen
who charged under the silken banner
of Prince Rupert in the cause of
recreant king. Cold must be the
heart of that American who is not
proud to claim, as countrymen, the
flower of the Virginia youth who
charged up the slippery slopes of
Gettysburg with peerless Picket, or
those unconquerable men in blue.
who, through two long and dreadful
days, rallied around heroic Thomas,
the Rock of Chickamauga.' 1t was
not southern valor or northern valor
it was, thank God! American valor
that valor which caused our revo-
lutionary fathers to throw their
gage of battle in the face of the son
of thousand kings-that valor
which animated Washington at