The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-07-09

ability, of great attachments, and OF
great achievements. n soldier, a
| statesman, a publicist. A faithful ser
want, who has served his country long
and well. who has fought for his
| country. who has bled for his country,
and who. through long years -periled
mis- life for his county; and has earn
ed the wreath of fame with which
ask you to deck his noble brow.
Sprung from that nursery of~Ameri-
can nobility, the American farm: de-
and heroic patriots; born to. an in
heritance of lofty chivalry; at his
country's call, he bounded to the bat
tlefield a flaming young Hercules.
Without a regular military educa-
ton, at first rejected as too young to
be a captain. in three years there
after he was a major general.
A citizen warrior, he proved hero,
against whose stern. unyielding front
of steel and flame the flower of a foe
as brave as ever bore arms was hurl-
ed, again and again. in vain. Wound
ed at Fair Oaks, severely wounded at
Fredericksburg, desperately and APP
parently MORALLY wounded at Chan
cellorsville, borne from the field as if
dead, with crimson laurels thick upon
him, he survived to fight on still more
bloody fields, and to receive the
praises of every great captain of the
Civil war.
'dThe stars" said Meaghre, that
blaze upon his shoulders were called
down from the skies by the magnetism
of his sword" and the great Grant
has declared. in his Memoirs, that this
boyish chieftain was equal to the part
performed by himself.
Pacified Hostile Indians.
At the close of the Civil war the
whole plain for hundreds of miles
east of the Rocky mountains was COW
cred with hostile Indians; marauding,
numbering, torturing, carrying devas-
tation and despair in all directions,
and making the settlement and de-
velopment of that region impossible.
The man I present was sent against
them. With sleepless vigilance, with
tireless energy, with consummate
strategy, with relentless purpose, with
fortitude unsurpassed in the annals
of time, with courage that faced
death at every step; on mountain
wiIds and through waterless wastes,
where men furnishing did taste their
own blood to quench the awful thirst;
through southern sands and northern
SHOWS; through storms that rocked
the earth and hid the sky; he and his
men pursued and overthrow the herce
Cheyenne, the terrible Sioux, and the
bloody Apache, driving their broken
remnants beyond the boundaries of
the United States; hurting Sitting Bull
into British America and Geronimo
into Mexico and capturing him there,
thus breaking forever the power of
the barbarian, clearing the plains of
the cruel, implacable. beleagur1ng
savage and opening their vast areas
to the peaceful millions who now in
habit them, and the unnumbered mill
lions who shall follow For this great
service be received the thanks of Ari-
IONA New Mexico. Montana and
Kansas.
cicero has said: "Grecian nations
give the honors of the gods to those
men who have slain tyrants; and
shall we hesitate to crown with the
chaplet he has won him who slew
the dragons of the wilderness and
the demons of the desert
Having pacified the plains. he rose
through merit alone to the head of
the army. To him the armies of
Spain surrendered. He liberated
Cuba, and carried glad tidings of
peace and liberty to Porto Rico.
Having opened the desert to civil
lization, with the eye of a prophet
and the wisdom of a statesman, he
pointed out the way to remove from
its parched and desolate face the |
old despair and cause it to answer the |
touch of the tiller with glorious
bloom, with ample verdure, and
smiling plenty. While others We're |
dreaming and wondering, he told |
them how Egypt, Assyria, Persia, In |
dia, China and Japan sustained enor- |
nous populations by a scientific and |
tudicious control of the natural sup
ply of water. And he has told us rel