Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1905-10-19

courage, OUT rejected the badge OF red tape-he
led this unframed, undisciplined, unequipped
army to Bennington. Boys he said, There
they are. We must beat them, or Mollie Stark S
wdowo' They did beat them. The power of
Burgoyne broken, and that day, more than
any other one day, decided the independence of
America. And Mollie Stark was not widow;
for though John Stark was almost SO the day he
beat them, he lived until 1922. But have re-
ferred to this familiar story to illustrate the
courage of men who know how to die, who are
determined that they will die rather than yield
When the British tracked the Americans by the
blood marks of their frozen feet in the snow, the
inexperienced said the Colonials were nearly
crushed, and could hold out but little longer
But the wise were grave and thoughtful. They
knew it for the red badge of courage. Men who
wear that badge do not know when they are de-
feated. Even when their bodies are Wondering
in the ground, their spirits, like that of John
Brown, go marching on. The Good Book says,
Greater love knoweth no man than this, that a
man lay down his life for his friends" And of
all the promises of that book, no other stirs the
heroic in human life more effectively than the
words, "Be thou faithful unto death and will
give thee the crown of life''
There is still another red badge of courage
1t is not the blood of the slave crying to God
from the ground, not the blood of the wounded
and dying, lying where the ground is "wet but
not with rain, deep-dyed, but not with wne.''
1t is not blood, poured out, never again to nour-
sh Gods children; but it is the blood which
surges in the veins of energy, throbs in the heart
of faithfulness, feeds the muscles of service and
the brain of intelligence 1t is the rich red blood
of activity and accomplishment. That is the
badge offered US to-day; and it is still the badge
cd 1pnio
as much as he wanted them at Concord and
Lexington, 100 years ago to-day.
Years ago the Spirit of the Law Inexorable
which determines the fate of nations, spoke to our
fathers, saying, 81 landed your ancestors upon
spot rough and unfrutful. But | set their feet
firmly upon the earth, and placed in their hands
the faithful axe and the patient spade, bidding
them subdue the earth And they responded
They carved out of the forest, farms and homes
Now call upon you to look upon the land which
stretches far away toward the setting sun, en-
pre larger than that of ancient Rome, country
fairer and more fruitful than the Islands of the
BEST of which ancient poets dreamed. Will you
go forth and possess it?" And fathers re-
sponded. They felt something burning in their
muscles and blazing in their brains which impell
ed them to seek for that which lay just beyond
the setting sun. They lived in wagons; they
built log houses in the forest and sod houses on
the prairie, and they made dug-outs among the
hills Like Abraham of old they went out not
knowing whittier they went. but they went with
that sublime courage without which no pioneer
can succeed. Again the Spirit spoke to them.
"Your fathers came to this continent from differ
ent lands and with different motives; they spoke
different languages. | gave them time. lmmi-
grafton practically ceased for nearly hundred
years. They learned to understand and appreci-
ate one another: they fitted themselves to one an
other. Then their union was cemented with the
blood of the Revolution. About 1900 mmigra-
ton began again; now people are hocking to you
from all over the world Will you receive them,
and understand them and make them part of
yourselves?'' Again America has not been lack
| ing And with these new citizens we have gone
on to possess new lands. Long ago we reached