The Somerset reporter., 1904-05-26
For The Reporter
Both Sides Victorious.

Monday next Is Memorial Day, and q
suitable program for It's observance will
be carried out In Skowhegan as there
will be In all other towns and cities OF
the north. La every community the
custom is much the same. Factories
officers and stores are closed, Industry
ceases, and business of all kinds Is de-
ferred. During the morning hours many
are at the cemeteries completing the
work that has been going on In them
through the weeks of spring that every
thing may be seemly and in order when
the enclosures are visited for the decora-
ton of the graves and the other eere-
monies of the afternoon. There are
always addresses appropriate to the day,
professions made up OF the surviving
heroes of the war, auxiliary bodies, like
the Woman's Relief Corps and Sons of
Veterans; very often, too, detachments
of the National Guard, fraternal orders
and school children are seen In the
column. Every union soldiers grave Ia
marked with a flag and decorated with
flowers and the graves of the soldiers of
the south, of which there are a few Ia
our northern cemeteries, are visited and
honored.
On the thirtieth day Of April, just one
month earlier than the day we observe,
similar scenes are enacted throughout all
the territory which at one time styled
itself the confederate States Of Ameri-
Ca" On that day the graves Of those
who bore confederate arms are visited by
their surviving comrades and their deeds
are made the theme of orations that are
delivered before hearers who reverence
them and the cause for which they
fought. II the grave OF union soldier
is among those Of the confederate dead,
it too, receives its floral tribute and is
otherwise suitably honored.
Thus Is the memory Of the great con-
test between the states kept fresh In our
minds, thus do we of this generation un-
derstand what the actual participants in
that struggle soon came to concede, that
heroism, bravery, nobility of purpose
and devotion to duty were common to
both sides and that, after four awful
years of war, both sides had lost and
both had won.
The north had won, not so much In
the sense that its arms were victorious,
but because the union Of the states was
perpetually secured and chattel slavery
was forever abolished; 1t had lost be-
cause of the disappointments destined to
arise from the enfranchisement OF the
black race, of which so much had been
hoped, and because of the seeming im-
possibility of placing the negro on terms
OF industrial equality with his former
master
The south was defeated because its
armies we're dispersed and broken, its
sectional pride humbled, its most
cherished traditions destroyed, it's suffer-
ing and sacrifice had been In vain. 1t
had won because 1t was saved from the
folly Of separate political existence and
because the institution of slavery, which
1t has since come to understand was a
menace to the region In which 1t flourish
ed, perished with their cause.
The scenes of Memorial Day assist US
to understand our duty toward the
heroes of '65 and to the memory of their
departed comrades, but we miss a part
of the great lesson If we do not learn
from them to love peace and to abhor
war. Early in the history Of the Anglo.
Saxon race there was born a respect for
the forms of law, a desire for deIibera-
tion and council and regard for proper
auth ority-a precious heritage. No
glamour of military glory, no personal
pride or sectional jealousy, should ever
lead us to prefer the arbtrament of
strife to the trihnnala of natiee