The National tribune., 1904-08-18

Blue and Gray blend in the vast array Of
those who see more clearly now than when
the voice of Passion spoke through the
smoke of earthly conflict. And those who
remain. the sons OF the United country,
drop the sad tears Of mortality as they
nifty has received our dead and their dead,
and the earth hides them: and history
gathers their ashes into her all-containing
urn. Peace to those ashes; Oblivion to the
herceness of strife and the woes of broth
ers; and over that urn may great Amer
ica.
A mighty mother turn with tears
The record of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons"
PRESENT DUTIES.
Despite our losses. the Grand Army OF
the Republic now endures as it will i'm the
memories of men endure for many ages to
come. Its great mission is not yet fully
performed. We. its members, have noble
duties that devOlye upon us to-day. To
some of them l have adverted in the pre-
cedIng portions of this address; l have
spoken of your labors for comrades, for
country, and for children: but to my mind
we are entering upon higher plane and
marching under more cl0udless sky than
ever yet witnessed our banners; for ceas-
ing to be the t0ilers in the struggle of
middle life, and entering the reposeful
ways Of approaching age, we are become
eXemplars and teachers of those things
that are greatest and best i'm our history.
Wherever the Grand Army exists, in its
humblest Post or in its broadest Encamp-
ment, there spirits of the mighty abide
with lis and the teeming recollections of
noble struggles are about us: and as we
go in and out through the daily affairs of
life. our hold perhaps weakening little
on temporal affairs, we take a stronger
grasp upon those things that make to the
ment of the people. The old, bowed man.
ununiformed and alone, alike with the
prosperous Post that marches by with its
flag displayed and its drums rolling in the
vibrant air, holds ever about him the
mightiest companionship. He was, and
they were, the soldiers of Grant and Sher-
man and Sheridan, and of Meade and
Hancock, of Logan and Thomas. He is,
and they are, heroic survivors: noble teach
ers of duty, that duty which puts all at
test, even life itself, that great principles
may live, that Freedom and the Govern
ment of the free may endure and widen
with the centuries. They are part of the
mighty force of the Republic. and from a
far viewpoint. in blending blue Of history
the men of all the peoples wars will stand
united at the last as comrades i'm a cause
which, beginning at Lexington, continued
to AppOmattOx, in a procession of strug-
giles and victories which occupy the loftiest
theater of time. And as the viewpoint re-
cedes, more nearly do the columns of &c
and IL and '46 and 60 approach each
other until at the last they will be but one
Outstretched column of the heroic of the
land; one brave feet sailing the seas whose
Ch Lfnr co.
ton and his soldiers initiated, Father Abra-
ham and their successors made firm and
enduring. And, 0, the mighty cost and
burden of il all. the long sacrifices and toll
and death: but at the end an uplifted hu-
manity and an established Republic where
IN more than ever before the rights of man
are firmly imbedded, and from whose
widening front the torches Of great
liberty more and more illumine the world.
\ great host it is in which to have served
great result to have secured; and over
all. growing brighter through the ages, the
uplifting Flag with its unalterable colors
OF hope and courage and pure Govern
ment, and with its multiplying stars of
unity. My heart melts and my eyes over
flow when l contemplate all that these
vast shadows stand for; and when | think
Of what they have done and what is yet to
do, | thank God that l was a soldier of
the American Union. What to ours the
achievements Of legions or the conquests
of empire! We saved the world to men
and for man!
And now instead of ranked lines and
cleaning arms and rolling drums; instead
Of the call to battle and to brave death,
the Grand Army of the Republic is in
structor and advocate of peace. No man
in any age. not even the sober-garbed fol-
lowers of the great Quaker, SO have longed
for peace in its amplitude and its beauty as
have and do the men of the Grand Army
of the Republic; for we have known the
wasting; the interrupted commerce; the
flaming cities: the myriads of dead and the
woful multitudes of living victims; and
on these things l will not dwell. They are
in every memory of those before me- and
every impulse of our organization finds
voice in prayer fer the continuance Of the
peace which We have secured and where
with it has pleased Almighty God to
crown our later years.
In the great Exposition at st. Louis
one wanders with weary eyes past hund-
reds of canvasses on which are pictured
deeds of carnage and of blood; here is the
fierce rush from the Thuringian Forest;
here the fall of the single soldier; here the
uplift of the gay flag; here the pictured
CIll VI luc tIuupeIcT W dCllOU, UeTc Tie
fierce fash of the red artillery; here the
awful clash when in opposing ranks and
under opposing standards men strive for
their adversaries' blood; here in the grass
and under the shadow of the trees the
broken forms of the fallen; shattered ev-
erywhere, mangled everywhere, every
where the fierce struggle of the aroused
and savage animal within. And in the
midst of these many, single picture of
the wartime home, where, yoked to the
plow, the woman and the old man draw
the scanty furrow from which shall spring
the grain to feed the fighting men afar.
We have seen these things; we have known
them. We know that war is terrible
Never may our beloved land again be en-
broiled in blood; and yet we know, all
history teaches us, that while evil con-
tinues its exactions, good must arm against
it. We know that there can be no enduring
peace without righteousness; that that is
the cornerstone upon which alone a Sc
cure structure of Government for the
people may rise, and that when wrongs
are done to humanity they must be re-
dressed before the great peace can come.
So we hope that the right may prevail:
that those great things for which we
truggled-freedom, good citizenship.
diffused education, and triumphant pa
triotism-may be preserved and cherished:
kt,ak ,1n~