The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1903-06-04

Shiloh; Zollacoffer, at Mills Springs;
Stonewall Jackson, Lees right arm, in
Virginia. Polk priest and warrior, at
Lost Mountain; Barksdale and Garnet
at Gettysburg; Hill at Petersburg, and
the Dashing Stuart, and Daniels, and
Perrin, aud Dearing, and Dale, and
numberless Others, as brave as mortal
man could be, all sleeping the sleep
which knows no waking.
Breathe, trumpets, breathe
Slow notes of saddest wailing:
Sadly responsive peal ye muffied drums.
Comrades with down-cast eyes
And banners trailing,
Attend him home
The youthful warrior comes.
upon his shield
Upon his shield returning;
Borne from the field of honor
Where he fell
Glory and grief together clasped
In mourning;
His fame, his fate
With sobs exulting tell.
Wrap round his breast
The flag his breast defended
His country's flag,
In battles front unrolled;
For If he died,
On earth forever ended,
His brave young life
Lives IN eacn sacred 1Olds
"With proud fond tears
By tinge of shame untainted,
Bear him and lay him
Gently in his grave.
Above the hero write
The young half sainted,
His country asked his life,
His life he gave"
The sudden hush and sense of awe
that impresses a child when first it steps
upon grave, may we'll overcome the
strongest man, when he looks upon the
face of his country SCARED with battle
fields as it is, and considers the blood
that was rudely wasted.
The slain in the great war of the re-
bellion we're mostly young men, whose
native virtues fill no living veins and
will not shine again on any field.
We cannot forget the million lives that
were freely given, nor the thousand
million dollars that were freely poured
out. Crippled lives, broken hearts and
desolate homes are a part-and the
greatest part-of the cost of the war,
which we, comrades, the surviving SOL
diers formed an integral part.
To my mind these annual gatherings
around the graves of our dead are but
wasted efforts, unless we can learn some
nobler lessons than to destroy.
Men write of war as if the only thing
necessary to be impressed upon the
minds of the growing youth were the
virtues of physical courage and contempt
of death. 1t seems to me this is the
last thing we need to teach, for since
the days Of John Smith in Virginia, and
the men of the Mayhower, no generation
of men has shown the lack OF it. From
Louisburg to Petersburg, hundred and
twenty-five years, full span of FIVE
generations, they have stood to their
guns, and been shot down in greater
comparative numbers than any other
nation of men on earth.
In the war of secession there was not
a state, not county and probably not a
town between the great lakes and the
gulf that was not represented on fields
Of courage, where all men could do with
powder and steel was done, and where
valor was exhibited at its highest pitch.
1t was common saying in the army,
that courage was the cheapest thing
there, easier had, sometimes, than our
rations.
While the minds of our youth are be-
ing impressed with American bravery,
there is great necessity for teaching
them respect for law, reverence for hu.
man life, and regard for rights of their
fellow man. 1t is not enough to think
they are right, but they must know they
are right, before they rush into any ex-
pertinent that is to cost the lives of men,
or the tears of orphans of their own or
any other land. | would have them
comprehend that one may fight bravely
and still be perjured felon; that one
may die humbly and still be a patriot
whom his country cannot afford to lose
that as might does not make right, so
neither do rags and bare feet argue a
noble cause. would teach them that
political lie, whether uttered in a
newspaper, platform, or from the pull
pit, or by the cartoon method, or pres
ident of the United States, is no less a
lie; that political chicanery and sophis.
try, the politicians stock in trade, when
long persisted in, is likely to end disas-
trouslY for the country. These are sim
pile lessons, but they are not taught in
day, and some whom we call great 90
through life without mastering them at
all.
1t may be necessary to learn from one
war how to conduct another, but it is
infinitely better to learn how to avert
another. | am doubly anxious to i'm.
press this consideration upon the minds
of my hearers, because history seems to
show that armed conflicts have ten
dency to come around about so often,
with only an interval of few years be.
tween them, and because think see in
certain circumstances now existing
within our republic, the elements OF
civil war. The enactment of unjust laws
sooner or later leads to revolution.
History, in all ages and in all countries,
teaches this fact. Where today is he
roic Greece, with her art and learning?
Where is imperial Rome, the widow OF
two civilizations, pagan and Catholic?
They both had her, and to both she bore
sons and daughters, but the Niobe of
nations, boasting that her children were
fairer and more holy than all the pure
Ideas OF justice, truth and love, off
springs of the eternal God, and for set
ting herself above all these, she sits
transformed into stone midst the bones
OF her children. Where today is the
proud Persian empire, her Alex,
anders, her Xerxes, her Cyruses? All |
gone, punishment due to the oppres-
sion of the people.
President Roosevelt, while on his West
ern "Trip, gave voice to the following |
timely words: I'VE shall not make Of |
this great republic what it must be made,
until We join together to hunt down the
successful rascals just as surely as we do |
the unsuccessful rascals."
This sentence, these noble words from
the lips of our president, strikes at the
heart of one of the causes of the wide
spread unrest and discomfort of the peo-
Pile throughout our own and other coun-
tries. The people feel that even handed
justice is not meted out 10 all alike; that
those who command wealth and infiu-
ance escape a just punishment for their
evil doings, while the less fortunate ones