Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1908-12-04
foung Men of Today Must
Nerve Themselves to Meet
Issues as BraveIy as Did
Their Fathers.

Washington, d. c., Nov, 2S.-Speak-
ing at the dedication OF the Sheridan
monument today, President Roosevelt
said:
1t is eminently fitting that the nations
Industrious men, the men who loom as he
roes before the eyes of our people, should
be fittingly commemorated here at the ma
tional capital. and | am glad indeed TO
take part in the unwilling OF this statue
TO General Sheridan. His name will al
ways stand high on the list of American
worthless. Not only was he a great gem
eral, but he showed his greatness with
that touch of originality which we call
genius. Indeed this quality of briiliance
has been in one sense a disadvantage to
his reputation, for IL has tended to over
shadow his solid ability.
We tend to think of him only as the
flashing cavalry leader, whereas he was
in reality not only that. but also a great
commander. OF course, the fact In his
career most readily recognized was his
mastery in the necessarily modern art or
handling masses of modern cavalry so as
TO give them the fullest possible effect, not
only In the ordinary operations of caYal-
~ which precede and follow a battle, but
in the battle itself. But in addition he
showed In the civil war that he was a inst
class army commander, both as a subord-
mate OF Grant and when in independent
command. His record in the Valley cam
paign. and again from Five Forks 70 APP
pomattoX. is one difficult to parallel In
military history. After the close OF the
great war. In a field where there was scant
glory TO be won by the general In chief.
he rendered a signal service which has
gone almost unnoticed: for in the tedious
weary Indian wars on the great plains II
was he who developed in thorough-golng
fashion the system of campaigning In
winter. which, at the cost OF bitter hard
ship and peril, finally broke down the
banded strength of those formidable war
riors. the horse Indians.
His career was typically American, for
from plain beginnings he rose to the high
est military position in our land. we
honor his memory itself; and moreover,
as i'm the case of the other great COM
manders of his day. his career symbolizes
the careers of all those men who In the
years OF the nations direst need sprang
TO the front to risk everything, including
life Itself. and to spend the days of their
strongest young manhood in valorous con-
f1ict for an ideal. Often we Americans
are tainted with having only a material
ideal. The empty folly Of the taunt is
sufficiently shown by the presence here
today Of you men of the Grand Army,
YOU the comrades OF the dead general, the
men who served with and under hin In
all history we ave no greater instance OF
subOrdiuatiOn of self, Of the eXalting OF a
lofty ideal over merely material we'll
being among the people of a great nation,
than was shown by our own people I'm the
civil war.
And you. the men who wore the blue,
would be the first to say that this same
lofty indifference to the things OF the
body. when compared to the things OF the
soul, was shown by your brothers who
wore the gray. Dreadful was the suffer-
Ing. dreadful the loss, Of the civI war. Yet
il stands alone among wars In this, that,
now that the wounds are healed. the MEM
DRY OF the mighty deeds of valor per-
| formed on one side no less than on the
other has become the common heritage