The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-01
LATEST FAIR HAVEN NEWS
GENERAL OBSERVANCE OF DECO
 RATION DAY.

Memorial ExeFeises-Address ln Grand Avenue Cemetery by Rev. E. ". stone Subject, "The Great Issue Involved in inc VVar"-An Eloquent Speech.
 Very interesting memorial services were held in Fair Haven Saturday morning. The public exercises were held in Fair Haven cemetery, where a great crowd of people assembled. An eloquent address was delivered by the Rev. E. W. Stone, pastor of the Grand avenue Baptist church.
 His subject was '"The Great Issue In- volved in the War" He said in part: To-day the nation halts in it's hot pur- suit of gold and power to strew flowers upon the graves of it's lamented dead; to listen to eulogies of their courage and sacrifice and to think again of terrible four years of a fratricidal war. How vividly do those days come back to those among us drawing near the evening time of life and whose habit is to i've much in the past. They remember the days when the news flashed from sea to sea that Fort Sum ter was fired upon. They remember the sounding of the tocsin of war. They remember how the very flower of the land from farm and shop, from count ing house and office rushed to the front to place their life on their country's al- tar They remember the fearful part ings from loved ones, the flardships and sufferings of army life, the awful car- mage of battle, 90O,O00 men slain in war and as many more maimed for life. They remember the heroic courage, the suffering and sorrows of the women and children of the land. How vididly do all these scenes come back to these veterans who are still among us. But most of us her can have no apprecia- ton of these things. The war to us is only history. We read of it, of it's great battles, of the causes that led up to it and cherish our prejudices, or form our opinions. But can feel noth- ing of the suspense of those years, of the sorrow of desOlate hearts over shat tered bones, of the suffering of men in field and camp and hospital. To us forty years away it was only one of the crises through which our country has passed in its onward march of
 
 preservation of the union. For years l have been of the opinion that this does not titly or fully describe it. The Fourth of July 1776, when the old Lib erty bell on Independence hall rang out the adoption of the Declaration of In- dependence is looked upon as the birth day of the nation. But I doubt if it should be so regarded. I would not be thought of as belittling the day, or detracting from the noble men who made it. It was indeed great day, not only in our history but in the his- tory of the human race Then our fathers declared their independence of the mother country and a mighty stride towards universal liberty was taken. By the seven years war we won the right to govern ourselves, but there was little, if any, national unity. The thirteen states were little more than an aggregation of independent sovereign countries. There were wise and far-seeing men in all these states; they saw the necessity of national un- ity, but the thing itself did not exist. Even after the adoption Of the consti- tuition there was little or no real unity. It was all too generally regarded as a mere compact between sovereign states and the national government. Within ten years of it's adoption the states be- gan to pass resolutions or laws nulli- flying the acts of congress. Ten years afterwards the extreme Federalists proposed northern confederacy. Four years later the Hartford convention gave utterance to similar expression and from thence on to the war of se- cession the admission of almost every new state threatened the dissolution of the union. At the outbreak of the war tWenty-six states, including the eleven seeding states, had on their statute books laws nullifying the acts of con- gress We had the name of a nation, but no national unity existed among us. The birthday of this was when the Southern Confederacy collapsed. The men in blue gave the finishing blow to the heresy of states rights and gave us, let us hope forever, union in truth, as well as in name. Not since '65 has this heresy dared to lift it's head in this nation. We are far enough away from those days and our brains are now clear enough of passions and prejudices to see how great was the issue, or is- sues, involved in that strife It was the birth pang of real national unity. The real birthday of this nation was in 1865, not in 1776'
 MT. Stone mentioned that after the election of President Hayes and the re- port of the returning board had been made, certain northern democrats ap-