Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1903-06-04

fell for freedom. War is at its best ter
rible and cruel but It's most awful phase
is seen ouly when it is fought to the
DEATH between people of the same blood,
when disagreemelts between people of
a common ancestry with common
language and Interests lead TO civil war.
| That God does not desire war at ell we
must conclude as we take note of the
means he employs to make it impossi-
BILE. To some of these means I wish to
invite your attention today. In many
of the splendid churches and great
cathedrals of the old world may be seen
banners and battle flags, faded by time,
torn by shot and shell and stained by
the blood of heroes, conspicuously dis
played and jealousy guarded. imag-
inc, in some measure, the thrill of 10y
atty that the devout worshipper must
experience as he lifts his eyes to these
memorials of heroic achievement. If
the wind-torn, shell tattered and blood
stained trophies OF the war which You
represent could be draped i'll orr places
of worship, would they not be inspiring
to patriotism and loyalty: We Go have
these influences in some measure,
because in the state house, in the public
buildings and elsewhere they may be
seen But it could not thus reach all
tlo ,1oo,,lo aoJ tbat II M: ,.1,t no roo cbaa
other means must be employed. And
so your assembling OH Memorial Day in
all the villages and hamlets of this land
has beautifully and well taken the place
of the battle flags. 1t has been the Gus
tom of these living trophies of battle 70
assemble on each recurring thirtieth of
May to bear witness OF the fact that III
time of the sorest need the country
called and they responded and inter-
posed their bodies between the traitors
bullets and the nations heart. These
Memorial Days have always been recog-
nized and as such am convinced they
are a means whereby we as agents Of
the Almighty are fulfilling for Him a
means of preventing war, by teaching
lessons of loyalty. Moses, the great
leader of Israel, apprehending the
mighty influences that adhere to such
services, directed his followers TO
observe the rights and ceremonies of
the passover, that one generation might
repeat to the next the story of the deliv-
erance from Egypt and to thus keep
alive the fidelity to those principles
upon which success and greatness alone
depend. And who can doubt that these
very services themselves have had more
to do with binding together these peo-
pie, making them more loyal and loving
to each other than all other influences
combined?
To the observation of the men, women
and children of this day the brave deeds
of forty years ago, when the war for
union and liberty was waged by the
patriots, shine with a lustre which time
has frightened and the progress of the
saved republic made eMore significant.
The self-sacrifice of the million citizens
who left their pursuits of peace-the
industry of the farms, the loom and
spindle of the factory, the centers of
trade and commerce, the work of the
professions-whole left home and friends,
wives and children and all their custom
airy comforts, and, each sharer In the
one vast impulse to defend the national
life, rushed to the field of danger and
death, where tireless and fearless, for
long years they toiled and fought and
suffered and died--this self-sacrifice,
like an ever-ascending, undying pillar
of light, grows grander in the estima-
ton of men as the generations go by
1t is the pathos of American life from
its commencement, it is the heroic of its
history, it is a tale told to listening
childhood in every patriot home, it is
the theme of song and story, tits spoken
by the preacher who pleads with men
i'll the name of Him "Who laid down
His life' that race might live.
More and more it influences the minds
OF men and receives solemn recognition
for its sublime character. From the
fathers in this past of heroism, their
sons in the present have received rich
legacies of liberty and free institutions,
unhindered opportunities for Labor and
development, and the blessings of a
Christian civilization under secure
government of law. Such an inherit
ance is debt upon the gratitude of its
every beneficiary and reminds him, in
moments of contemplation and on sol
emn days like this, of the long agony
and strife and labor from which came
the blessings of today. Like the grave
of Abel these brothers Of ours still
speak. And the voice from forty thous-
and graves in our national cemeteries
and those that dot the nation here and
there are more eloquent than any orator