The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-06-03

charity loyalty" are the watehwords of
| the Grand Army of the Republic. May
! they be the watehwords of the church. the
home and the state. May we be true to
our friends, always true, and never will
| ing to turn our backs upon our friends nor
upon our foes.
But as I see the long line of the blue
coats" called the Grand Army Of the Re
public file past | am struck with another
| fact. There is not grander set OF men
on earth living than these men, take
| them as a whole. ] was talking with one
of the chief officers of one of our large
soldiers homes some time ago He said:
| Some of the finest, noblest men | have
| ever met are here" But though that be
| true, yet on account of the prominence
| of the organization and also on account
| of the grand men who compose this or
ganization impostors have crept in and
| have been the means of discrediting the
! organization to some extent in the eyes
| of many who want to be just False
| heroes have multiplied almost as rapidly
since the war closed as have the numbers
of people who trace their ancestry to
| some man who crossed the Atlantic in the
| Mayflower in 1920 The American who
cannot find one of the ancestors in the
cabins of the pilgrims boat has no ances-
| trail ingenuity. Why, # we count the
| number of descendants of the pilgrims
now living we must conclude that those
pious refugees We're the most prolific race
| that ever descended from Adam. What
is true in reference to the Mayflower pill
grims is true to a less extent of many
who have paraded under the noble uni
form of the Grand Army. Sometimes !
feel that the war heroes can be manu-
featured to order in our day almost as
readily as the guides can pick up the
bullets and the rusty flintlocks upon the
battle field of Waterloo, which those same
f..4F.
led the gullble tourists to the places
where they could find them.
lmpostors on the Rolls.
Shame, shame we say when so many
noble mea have fought and bled and sac
rifced for their country that impostors
and deceivers should parade about US
heroes. And because these impostors have
crept in upon the pension rolls the coun-
try has become suspicious. At the same
time there are hundreds and thousands
of noble veterans deserving of better
treatment who are being allowed to suffer
and who have no adequate provision made
for them and the support of their dear
ones.
We find ourselves in a similar position
to that of General Taylor after his ele-
walton to the White House. No sooner
was he installed than great number
of men came to him and said; Give us
Vista Give us position One day. af-
ter listening patiently to a candidate who
wanted to be postmaster in a Missouri
town on the ground that he had fought
under the President in the Mexican war,
General Taylor said. Il used to think that
| was at the battle of Buena Vista my
self but since | have come to Washing
ton I have heard of so many things which
happened down there that l am convinced
! was not there at ALL" So with the inn
posters of the civil war We sometimes
turn our backs upon the true heroes be-
cause OF the impostors who wear the old
| uniform Let us beware of neglecting the
| honest soldiers or refusing just reward
and care for the faithful and noble veter-
ans merely because there are some de-
eeivers in the Grand Army of the Repub-
| lie. Better, far better, give a pension to
| ten false petitioners rather than neglect
TO do patriotic justice to one true hero
who is now among us and deserving Of
| our governmental aid.
But the Grand Army of the Republic
teaches us still another lesson, and it is
| a terrible one. A man may be a hero in
| his youth-aye, a hero upon the field of
battle, yet anything but a hero In his
| private life. He may be brave as a
"Chnese Gordon" before a human foe
and yet a coward before the temptations
| of the flesh, and, though sin Is repellant
when 1t Is witnessed in any man, it is
most pathetic and to be deprecated when
1t is seen in an old soldier who is drunk
and immoral or who is vile of tongue.
A soldier does not necessarily have to be
a physical coward to be a moral cast
away. A man may be a moral coward
and yet be physically as brave as a lion.
SO many old soldiers have lost the battle
of life not because they were cowardly
upon the field of carnage, but because
they were not brave enough to defy temp
tation when 1t came to them in time of
peace
A Hero Conquered.
To illustrate my thought let me draw
for you the picture of one of my dearest
friends. He was one of the leading mem
bers of the first church of which | was
pastor. l can see him now, straight as an
Indian war chief. He carried himself as
only that man does who has kept step to
the beating of the drums. No music was
to him so sweet as the booming of the
cannon on a national holiday | can hear
him now say: do you hear 1t? We old
fellows have often had for n reVeille the
sound of those guns" He was in that
awful charge of the Sunken road at Fred
ercksburg. He led his company there In
defiance of Longstreets cannon sweeping
over that field. He followed Grant on
through the Wilderness He never feared
the face of man. Yet how relentlessly
the temptations of sin entrapped himl
Lower and lower he sank. The stout
hand which always had such a cordial
grasp of mine began to weaken and
tremble as it more and more frequently
reached out for the poisonous cup. After
/ left that church and went to a western
field letters from my old home came
saying Captain So-and-so Is not doing
WE'LL" No. he was not doing we'll He
drank up his business. He drank up
the fortune his father left him. He
drank big mortgage ON his home. He
sent his girls forth to work for their
daily bread. And the last time | saw him
sin had almost completed its work |
did not at first recognize the physical and
mental and spiritual wreck When | saw
him sitting in my old church | said,
What a mighty power sin must be to
have conquered so valiant a hero!' oh,
1t was pitfu to see that stalwart frame,
that indomitable spirit overcome and laid
low by degrading habit If one so
strong, so fearless. so brave has fallen,
God keep us weaker mortals close to him
self lest we, too, suecumb to temptation.
But there is another great lesson that
/ learn from the old soldiers. 1t Is the
preserving power of industry. No man
is so happy as when he is working
man in the struggle for his daily bread,
i once read a dramatic story of the
Sioux war of 1872 The Third United
States cavalry was encamped for the
night on the southern borders of South
Dakota. BY the violence of a mighty
storm the cavalry horses stampeded. All
seemed lost, for without those horses the
soldiers were helpless before the enemy.
Suddenly the colonel ordered the bugler