The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1903-09-25
no fear it will exult in the name and
fame of William B. Bate.


fame of William B. Bate.
Nc, ladies and gentlemen, never,
never never will the time come when
there will be son or daughter born
of the blood of Sumner County whose
eye will not dim with tears or kindle
with fire for the deeds and sufferings
of their sires.
Happy is that land, my countrymen,
that is filled with the memorials OF
great deeds and glorious sufferings,
whether they be of triumphs nobiy
won. or of inevitable disasters proudly
and heroically borne. 1t needs not
that these memorials be wrought in
arch and column and temple OF vic
tory. The land may be black with
ruin; it may be streWn with the ashes
of desolation and beloved with the
graves of it's dead, but it will be and
remain land Of legend, a land of
song, land of hallowed and heroic
memories. If the hearts of the people
be not tanned to servitude; if they ac
cept the inevitable in no craven tenn
Witty at the yictor's foot; if they face
the future with undaunted spirit and
erected brow, every ruin will be a
temble aud the very ashes of the dead
will kindle with a living and heroic
fire.
Ladies and gentlemen, | love the
South, not only for her shining and
heroic deeds; | love her for her sor-
rows and sufferings; for her mis-
fortunes and calamities, and for the
dead that sleep within her bosom.
1t has been said that "land with
out ruins is a land without memories.
and a land without memories is a land
without liberties. A land that wears
! a laurel crown may be fair to look up
on, but Irvine few sad cypress leaves
about the brow of any land, and be
that land barren, beautileSs and
bleak it becomes lovely in its conSe-
Grated coronet of sorrow and wins the
sympathy of the heart and of history.
| Crowns of roses fade; crowns of thornS
endure forever. Calvaries and cruel
txions take deepest hold on human
ity. TITS their sufferings that are
craven deepest on the chronics Of
nations"
My countrymen, if the South is fill
ed with graves it is filled also with
memories. These memories of the
dead past will quicken into living
future. These graves of heroes are
the wombs of heroes yet to be born.
Who does not feel the truth as we'll as
the beauty of the words of Father
Ryan. the poet Of the Lost Cause:
ooh, give me the land where the
ruins are spread,
And the living tread light on the
hearts of the dead.
Oh, give me the land that is blessed
by the dust,
And bright with the deeds of the war
slaughtered just,
Give me the land where the battles
red blast
Has flashed to the future the fame of
the past.
Give me the land that hath story and
song
To tell of the strife of The right with
the wrong.
Give me the land with grave in each
spot
And names in the grave that shall not
be forgot.
Give me the land of the wreck and the
tomb,
Their is grandeur in graves, there is
glory in gloom.
For out of the gloom future bright
ness is born
AS after the night comes the sunrise
Of morn.
And the graves Of the dead with the
grass overgrown
Shall yet be the footstool of 'ioerty's
throne;
And each single wreck in the warpath
of night
Shall yet be rock in the temple of
right"
Ladies and gentleman, in rearing
this monument to the Confederate
soldiers, we testify to the country and
to mankind our enduring fidelity to
their memory, we commemorate their
valor and devotion as displayed on
many a bloody field. In doing so, let
it be known to all that we come in no
spirit of contrition for the past. We
beg no tenderness of the future his
torian, no charity from the enlighten-
ed Judgment of mankind. Standing
in the presence of the noble and i'm
pressive monument you have reared to
them we proudly front the world and
proclaim to be present and the COM
ing time, ''these are our heroes and
their cause was ours" We make for
them no confession of wrong, we plead
for no forgiveness of error, we ask no
higher honor and no prouder fate than
that by their deeds we may be judged,
and our most feryent prayer is that
the descendants Of those heroes may
be worthy of their sires. Ladies and |