Los Angeles herald., 1906-05-31
PAYS TRIBUTE TO
NATION S HEROES
PRESIDENT HON0RS THE BLUE
AND THE GRAY
Decoration Day Services at Ports
mouth, Virginia, and Elsewhere
Are Both Beautiful and
Impressive
BY Associate l Press.

BY Associate Press.
PORTSMOUTH, Va, May sO.-Presi-
dent Roosevelt Joined the people of
Virginia today in beautiful and inn
pressive tribute to the nations dead.
Under the auspices Of the Army and
My Union, the organization of the
officers and enlisted men Of the United
State army and navy, the president de-
livered the Memorial day address here
to an audience numbering thousands.
Immediately after delivering the ora
tion of the day President Roosevelt un-
veiled a monument erected in the
Naval cemetery by the Army and Navy
Union to the memory of its dead COM
rades.
The procession consisted of several
thousand men from the North Atlantic
fleet, Army and Navy Union organiza-
tions, Grand Army veterans, camps of
Confederate veterans and many other
societies.
At II o'clock the exercises opened
with prayer by Bishop Van Devyver
o fthe Catholic diocese of Richmond.
After music by a military band, Presi-
cent Roosevelt was introduced by Col.
j. Edwin Brown, national commander
of the Army and Navy Union.
The presidents address follows:
Day Is Sacred to All
This day is hallowed and sacred in
our history, for on this day throughout
the land we meet to pay homage to the
memory OF the valiant dead who fell
in the great civil war. No other men
deserve so well of this country as those
to whom we owe it that we now have
country. Moreover, the men to whose
valor we owe it that the Union was
preserved have left us country re-
united in fact as well as in name
They have left us the memory of the
great deeds and the self-devotion alike
of the men who wore the blue and of
the men who wore the gray in the
contest where brother fought brother
with equal courage. with equal SINGER
ity of conviction, with equal fidelity to
high ideal, as it was given to each
to see that ideal.
Moreover, it is a peculiar pleasure
TO speak today under the auspices of
the.Army and Navy Union, of the
union which is meant to include the
officers and enlisted men of the regular
forces of the United States
Exactly as there is no other body of
men to whom in the past we have
owed so much as to the veterans of
the civil war, so there is no other body
of men among all of our citizens of
today who as a whole deserve quite as
well of the country as the officers and
enlisted men of the army and navy of
the United States. Every man who
has served well and faithfully, afioat
or ashore, in the service of the United
States, has shown that he possesses
certain qualities which entitIe him in
peculiar degree to the respect of all
his fellow citizens while every man
who is now in the service cannot but
feel himself uplifted by the thought that
in any time of future crisis it may be
that the honor of the whole nation will
depend upon his bearing.
Responsibility Rests Upon Each
There rests upon each of you a
tremendous burden of responsibility,
and therefore to you belongs the proud
privilege of bearing the load of respon-
sibility well.
'This audience is composed largely
of veterans of the civil war, largely of
men who have served in or are serving
in the army and the navy of the United
States. They are concerned not only
with the duties of the soldier and the
sailor, but with the duties of the civ
urith oil