The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1904-05-30
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day lives now as in the rare times
of great stress. The men who made
this field forever memorable did SO
because they combined the power Of
fealty to a lofty ideal with the power
of showing that fealty in hard, prac-
tical common-sense fashion. They
stood for the life of effort. not the
life of ease. They had that love of
country, that love of justice, that
love of their fellow-men, without
which power and resourceful efficien-
cy but makes man danger to his
fellows. Yet, in addition thereto.
they likewise possessed the power
and the efficiency; for otherwise their
high purpose would have been barren
of result. They knew each how to act
for himself, and yet each how to act
with his fellows. They learned. as
all the generation of the civil war
learned, that rare indeed is the
chance to do anything worth doing
by one sudden and violent effort. The
men who believed that the civil war
would be ended in ninety days. the
men who cried loudest 'On to Rich
mond.' if they had the right stuff in
them speedily learned their error;
and the war was actually won by
those who settled themselves stead
fastly down to fight for three years,
or for as much longer as the war
might last, and who gradually grew
to understand that the triumph would
come, not by a single brilliant vic
tory, but by a hundred painful and
tedious campaigns. In the east and
the west the columns advanced and
recoiled, swayed from side to side.
and again advanced; along the coasts
the black ships stood endlessly OFF
and on before the hostile forts; gen.
erals and admirals emerged into the
light, each to face his crowded hour
of success or failure; the men in
front fought; the men behind sup
piled and pushed forward those In
front; and the final victory was due
to the deeds of all who played their
parts we'll and manfully. in the scores
OF battles, in the countless skirmish-
es. in the march. in camp, or in re-
serve, as commissioned officers, or
In the ranks-whereyer and whenever
duty called them. Just so it must
be for us in civil iife We can make
and keep this country worthy of the
men who gave their lives to save IL,
only on condition that the average
man among us on the whole does his
duty bravely. loyalty, and with COM
mon sense. in whatever position life
allots to him. National greatness
is of slow growth. 1t cannot be fore
ed and yet be stable and enduring;
for it is based fundamentally upon
national character, and national char
acter is stamped deep in people by
the lives of many generations. The
men who went into the army had to
submit to discipline, had to submit
to restraint through the government
of the leaders they had chosen, as
the price of winning. So we, the
people, can preserve our liberty and
In, ~ 1x,
by ourselves exercising the virtues
of honesty, of self-restraint. and of
fair dealing between man and man.
In all the ages of the past men have
seen countries lose their liberty, be-
cause their people could not restrain
and order themselves, and therefore
forfeited the right to what they were
unable to use with wisdom.
'It was because you men of the civ
il war both knew how to use liberty
and how to defend it at
need that we and our children and
our children's children shall hold you
in honor forever. Here, on Memo
rial Day, on this great battlefield, we
not only the chiefs
who actually won this battle: not on
ly Meade. and his lieutenants. Han
cock and Reynolds and Howard and
Sickles. and the many others whose
names flame in our annals; but also
the chiefs who made the Army Of the
Potomac what it was, and those who
afterwards led it in the campaigns
which were crowned at Appomattox;
and furthermore those who made
and used its sister armies: McClel-
Ian, with his extraordinary genius for
Rosecrans, Buell.. Tho
mas, the unyielding, the steadfast:
and that great trio. Sherman. Sheri-
dan, and last and greatest of all,
Grant himself, the silent soldier whose
blows finally beat down