The National tribune., 1903-06-04

lads Of feeblef-tempered men than them.
lselves, 40 Cortez's handful did tie Aztecs
They only recoiled In defeat because they
encountered men moro resolute in main.
tanning the Government than they were tc
destroy It, and who were courageous in
proportion to their resolution. s'
EVERYTHING AMERICAN ON TRIAL.
Much more than mere soldiership was
on trial during those eventful three days
of July, 1868. American churches, Amer
ican schools, American homes, and Amer.
lean political institutions were on trial.
For two and a half centuries We had
been developing on this continent pecu.
liar civilization, which we hoped would
in the Old World. We had been trying
to evolve a superior type of manhood to
any that the world had ever seen, and
our social and political institutions all
concentrated their efforts upon this devel-
Iopmept.
The war came to test the value Of this
work; it came to try whether men bred,
trained, educated and inspired as our
young men had been were equal to those
of the blood and training of other lands.
The result was the triumphant vindica-
tion of our hopes. We sent our noblest
and best young men into the army, and
what they did there was worthy of all
that our institutions had done for them,
and far surpassed that of any other sol.
diers in history.
In such awful battles as those of our
war. the village bully, the city rowdy. the
common ruffian had little or no part. Their
services were not worth the trouble it was
to keep them in line. The graduates of
the slums, the loafers about the saloons,
quickly found the terrors of the battle too
awful for their contemplation, and either
kept out of the army or shirked while in
it. Men of far higher character were
needed to confront the best men the
Southland could develop.
Our war was fought by honest, earnest,
God-fearing boys, reared in Christian
homes, who had the love and prayers of
fathers, mothers, sisters and sweethearts
behind them, who were inspired by the
lGftiest purposes, and feared shame and
disbonor far more than death. The after
career oe these men proves this. Their
magnanimity in victory was only equaled
| by their bravery in assault and their fortl-
tude in disaster. Not single act of
cruelty or persecution stained their rec
ord. though they had more completely
overthrown their enemy than ever before
in the annals of war.
| Though the rebels in the outset occu-
pied a territory greater in extent than
Great Britain, France, Germany, Aus
tria and Spain combined, and though they
| had more than one and one-half millions of
splendid fighting men in the field, standing
upon their own ground, yet there was no
mountain SO precipitous, there was no
swamp so impenetrab.e but that the UD-
ion soldiers would unhesitatinely attack
| their foes in their chosen Businesses and
sooner or later overcome them. They I'm
shed up their work SO completely that in
the end nowhere over that imperial eA-
1
miles, inhabited by ten million people, was
| there q sword drawn or Il flag raised in
defiance of the Government. Then dis
missing their late enemies to their homes,
with the sole requirement that they obey
| the laws and become good citizens, the
Union soldiers came back to their own
homes to become the best of citizens them
selves.
VETERANS AS CITIZENS.
As the years passed the sterling quality
that was in them brought them to the
| front wherever good work was being done
for the community. They were presidents
and professors in colleges, leading lawyers
and judges, managers of railroads and
| factories doctors of medicine, builders of
magnificent States out of the Indian
hanted Territories of the Great Wild
West, Governors and Senators, Supreme
Judges and Presidents. The Army Of the
| Union became the great army Of the Ma
| tion's peaceful activities, and, as with
Cromwelfs Ironsides, wherever q man be-
came distinguished in any line of effort,
it was tolerably safe to assume that he
had been soldier of the Union.
In these pursy times, with the pursuit
of the almighty dollar incr,i;s...iI .. a.
cnieI emu OIL uiun, II IS absolutely essen
tial that we should coll n holt at least
for one day in the year to consider far
greater things, without which there would
be no such opportunities as exist to-day
for men to pursue and gain dollars. This
is not mere sentiment, though, in spite of
decrials, sentiment is the greatest lever of
the world. 1t is what lifts man above
the savage, to place little lower than
the angels.
The observance of Memorial Day has
even the character of prudent, practical
foresight I'VE are living in a magnificent
edifice and enjoying all the protection
which it can give us. without thought
as to the stability of its pillars or the per-
petuity of its protection.
half century ago our fathers were
dwelling In similar edilice, which they
thought was secure for all time, and yet,
in day almost, came n storm which
showed that its firmest pillars were based
on sand. and threatened to wreck it ire
mediably. Memorial Day is n pause 10
consider this edifice, how it has been Gre
ated, and whether it is in danger of such
cureless ruin as suddenly threatened it in
1861.
MEMORIAL DAY AN INSURANCE
Recurring to the present restlessly ca
ger pursuit of the almighty dollar, let us
consider how difficult it would have been
had the secessionists succeeded in dividing
the country. Instead of the great Nation
of to-day, where all men speak one Iar.-
guage. obey one set of laws, and honor
one flag, we should have had score or
more Of little. jarring nationalities. each
with its boundaries guarded by forts and
soldiers; each with its tariffs and laws to
hamper trade and commerce, each with
its thousand jealousies of the other,
its memories of past injuries, its desirec
for revenge, its continual suspicious and
its costly ornaments. All industry and
enterprise would have been sunk miser-
ably under the heavy burdens imposed
upon them, and poverty, repression, tyr
amy and perpetual war would reign where
there is nothing but peace and prosperity.
If secession had succeeded it would not
have stopped with the II States which |
tried to withdraw from the Union. Other
disruptions would have inevitably followed. |
Even so able a soldier and true a pa
'triot as Gen. Winfield Scott felt the prob |
ability of thiS md in bic faYnnu, ia,tor