Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1908-12-04
PRESIDENT ROOSEYEL
FINE TRIBUTE TO SHERIDAN

of all our people in every quarter OF this
country.
The completeness with which this Is
true is shown by what is occurring here
today. We meet together to raise a mon
uinent to a great Union general, in the
presence of many of the survivors or
the Union arm: and the secretary OF war,
the man at the head of the army. who, by
virtue of his office, occupies a special re-
lation TO the celebration, is himself a man
VINO fought In the Confederate service.
Few indeed have been the countries
where such a conjunction would have
been possible, and blessed indeed are we
that in our own beloved land ii is not only
possible, but seems so entirely natural as
TO excite no comment whatever.
There is another point in General Sheri-
dams career which II is gooG for all of
US TO remember. Whereas Grant. Sher-
man, n Thomas were OF the old native
American stock, the parents of Sheridan,
like the parents of Farragut, were born
on the other side of the water. Any one
Of the five was just as much a type of
the real American, OF what is best IN
America, as the other -four. We should
Keep steadily before our minds the fact
that Americanism is a question OF prin-
ciple, of purpose, of idealism. Of charac-
ter; that IL is not a matter OF birthplace,
or creed, or line OF descent. Here in this
country the representatives of many old
world races are being fused together into
a new type. a type the main features of
which are already determined, and were
determined at the time OF the Revolu-
tionary war: for the crucible in which
all the new types are melted into one was
shaped from 1776 to 1859. and our nation
ality was definitely fixed in all the es-
sentials by the men OF Washington's day.
the strains will not continue TO exist
separately In this country as in the old
world. They will be combined in one:
and of this new type those men will be
best represented what Is Hottest in the
nations past, what is finest In her hope
Tor the future, who stand each solely on
ms worth as a man.: who scorn to do evil
to others, n who refuse to submit to
wrongdoing themselves: who nave in them
no faint OF weakness, who never fear
TO fight when fighting is demanded by a
sound and high morality. but who hope by
their lives to bring ever nearer the day
when justice and peace shall prevail
within our own borders and In our re-
lations with all foreign powers.
Much of the usefulness OF any career
must lie in the impress 1t makes upon,
and the lessons it teaches to the genera
tions that come after.
We OF this generation have our own
problems TO solve, and the condition OF
our solving them is that we shall work to-
gether as American citizens without re-
gard TO differences of section or creed or
birthplace, copying not the divisions
which so lamentably sundered our fathers
one from another. but the spirit Of burn
ing devotion to duty which drove them
v ""'h, SdSH " w the tight ds IL WAS
given him TO see the right. In the great
years when Grant. Farragut, Sherman,
Thomas and Sheridan, when Lee, Jack
son and the Johnstons, the valiant men
of the north and the valiant men OF the
south fought TO a finish the great civil
war. They did not themselves realize,
in the bitterness OF the struggle, that the
blood and the grim suffering marked
the death throes OF what was worn out,
and the birth pangs of a new and more
glorious national life. Mighty is the her
itage which we have received from the
men OF the mighty days.
We, in our turn, must grid up our loins
to meet the new issues with the same
stern courage and resolute adherence to
an Ideal, which marked our fathers who
belonged to the generation of the man In
whose honor we commemorate this monu-
ment today.