The Winchester news. [volume] (Winchester, Ky.) 1908-19??, 1908-11-27

pleteness with which this II true Il
shown By what Il occurring here To-
day. We meet together to raise q
monument to great Union general
In the presence Of many Of the sur
vivors Of the Union army. and the Sec
rotary OF war. the man at the head Of
the army. who. by virtue Of his Of
fee, occupies special relation to the
celebration. Is himself a man who
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 1t Is
not only possible, but seems SO entire
ly natural as totexcite no comment
whatever.
Amerieanism Defined.
There is another point in General
Sheridan's career which it Is good for
all of US to remember. Whereas
Grant, Sherman and 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 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 question Of
principle, of purpose, of idealism. of
character; that it Is not a matter Of
birthplace or creed or line of descent.
Here in this country the representa-
tives of many old world races are
being fused together into new type,
type the main features Of which are
already determined and were deter
mined at the time of the Revolutionary
war. for the crucible In which all the
new types are melted into one was
shaped from 1776 to 1889, and our ma
tionality was definitely fixed in all its
essentials 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 best represent what is lOftiest In
the nations past, what is finest in her
hope for the future, who stand each
solely on his worth as a man, who
scorn to do evil to others and who
refuse to submit to wrongdoing them
selves. who have 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 pre-
vail within our own borders and In
our relations with all foreign powers.
Much Of the usefulness Of any career
must lie in the impress that it makes
upon and the lessons that it teaches to
the generations that come after We
of this generation have our own prob
lens to solve, and the condition of our
solving them is that we shall all work
together as American citizens without
regard to differences of section or
creed or birthplace, copying not the di-
visions which so lamentably sundered
our fathers one from another, but the
spirit of burning devotion to duty
which drove them forward, each to do
the right as it was given him to see
the right, in the great years when
Grant. Farragut. Sherman. Thomas
and Sheridan, when Lee and Jackson
and the Johnstons. the valiant men of
the north and the valiant men of the
south. fought to finish the great civil
war. They did not themselves realize
IN the bitterness of the struggle THAT
the blood and the grim suffering mark
ed the death throes of what was worn
out and the birth pangs of a new
and more glorious NATIONAL life. Mighty
Is the heritage which we have received
from the men of the mighty days. We
in our turn must grid up our oins 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 monument today.