The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-10-19

ment. It is this hint the state department has been Investigating.
 
 each man saw it, whether northerne TOT southerner, these qualities render all Americans forever the debtors of those who in the dark days from '6l to to proved their truth by their endeaVer' Here around Richmond. here in your own state, there lies battlefield after pattie- field. rendered forever memorable by the men who counted death as but little thing when weighed in the balance against doing their duty as 1t was given them to see it. These men have left us of the younger generation not merely the memory of what they did in war, but or what they did in peace. Foreign observ- CTS predicted that when such great war closed 1t would be impossible for the hundreds of thousands of combatants to return to the paths of peace. They pre- dicted ceaseless disorder, wild turbu- lence the attenuation of anarchy and des- potism But the good sense and self-re- straint of the average American citizen falsifed these prophecies. The great arr mics disbanded and the private In the ranks, like the officer who had com manded him. went back to take mp the threads of his life where he had dropped them when the call to arms came. It was a wonderful a marvellous thing. In a country eonsecrated to pence with hut an infnitesinal regular army. to develop so quickly the huge hosts which fronted one another between the James and the Potomac and long the Mississippi and its tributaries. But 1t was an even more wonderful, an even more marvellous thing. how these great hosts. once their work done, resolved themselves into the gen. eral fabric of the nation
 Accon,pIish noents of peaoe
 Great though the need of praise is which is due the south for the solderly valor her sons displayed during the four years of war, I think that even greater praise Is due to her for what her people have accomplished In the forty years of peace which followed. For forty years the south has made not merely a cour- ageous, but at times a desperate struggle, as she has striven for moral and material well-being. Her success has been extra ordinary, and all citizens of our common country should feel joy and pride in 1t; for any great deed done. or any fine qualities shown by group of Ameri- cans of necessity reflects credit upon all Americans. Only a heroic people could have batted successfully against the conditions with which the people of the south found themselves face to face at | the end of the civil war There had been utter destruction and disaster, and wholly new business and social problems had to l be faced with the scantiest means. The economic and political fabric had to be readjusted In the midst of dire want of l grinding poverty. The future of the | broken, war-swept south seemed beyond | hope, and if her sons and daughters had been of weaker fiber there would in very truth have been no hope. But the men and the sons of the men who had faced l with unfaltering front every attenuation
 
 | Appomattox, and the women, their wives and mothers. whose courage and endur- ance had reached an even higher heroic | level-these men and these women set | themselves undauntedly to the great task before them. For twenty years the strug 1 gle was hard and at times doubtful. Then | the splendid qualities of your manhood and womanhood told. as they were bound | to tell. and the wealth of your extra ordinary natural resources began to he l shown. Now the teeming riches of mine | and field and factory attest the prosperity of those who are all the stronger because l of the trials and struggles through which l this prosperity has come. You stand 1 Loyalty to your traditions and memories; 1 you also stand Loyalty for our great com | mon country of today, and for our com mon flag, which symbollzes all that is | brightest and most hopeful for the future | of mankind; you face the new age in the l spirit of the age. Alike in your material and in your spiritual and intellectual de- ] velopment you stand abreast of the fore most in the worlds progress.
 And now. my fellow-citizens, my fel- | low-Americans, exactly as all of us whether we live in the east or the west l in the north or the south. have the right merely as Americans to feel pride in every great deed done by any American in the past, and exactly as We are knit together by this common heritage of memories, so common duties in the present, our com mon interests in the future. Many and 1 great problems lie before us. If we treat the mighty memories of the past merely l as excuses for sitting lazily down in the | present, or for standing aside from the rough work of the world. then these mem | ories will prove a curse instead of a blessing But if we treat them believe | we shall treat them. not as excuses for | ipaction but as incentives to make us | show that we are worthy of our fathers and of our fathers fathers, then in truth the deeds of the past will not have been wasted. for they shall bring forth fruit a hundred fold in the present generation. We of this nation, we the citizens of this mighty and wonderful republic. stretching | across a continent between the two great est oceans, enjoy extraordinary privi- leges. and as our opportunity Is great, therefore our responsibility IS great we have duties to perform both abroad and at home, and we cannot shirk either set { of duties and fully retain our self-respect.
 ''In foreign affairs we must make up 'prf ir'n sla whether we wish 1t or not tse fe rt people and must play a