Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-06-01
IN AUGUSTA.
Continued from Page One.)

the sound Of the assembly, and pass
ing up state street to Bridge street, i
turned down Bridge HILL and from
there to Water street, where the parad,
was dismissed. The parade was a fine
| one, the ranks of the different organi
cations participating being we'll filled
The men looked we'll and their march.
| ing was the subject of a great deal OF
| favorable comment, as was the must,
furnished for the occasion by the La.
| fayette hand
The program for the day closed with
the exercises at City hall in the even
ing, commencing at 7.30, and ct that
hour the hall was we'll filled with citi-
zens who has assembled for the pur-
pose of enjoying the program Mayor
frederick w. Plaisted presided in his
usual graceful manner, and the order
OF exercises was as follows:
Overtule-"Flower Girl" Barnard
Lafayette Band.
ln avo. ., Rev. Malry kearney
TwinXlinS Star" SouthweiI
Lafayette Bard.
Reading of Orders.
William McL'ay;d. adiutant
March-"Col. Fitch" r. B. Hall
Lafayette Band.
Grafton. Judge Benedict f. Maher
'A!nerica,''
Band and Audience
BeneUctIon. Rev. Brian Z. Roberts
The speaker of the evening was
Judge BENEDICT +. Maher of the Angus
Ia municipal court, and his address,
which was an excellent one was lis
tened to throughout with the closest
attention. Judge Maher spoke in part
as follows:
Today finds us one year further from
Srmpter. one year further from Bull
Run, another year removed from APP
pomattoX Court House, but we have
lived to learn that "this nation, I'M
der God, did indeed have a new birth
of freedom" and we, her grateful
children, gather the Union over to pay
in some small way our need of tri-
butte to those who made that birth
possible and to renew our fealty to
the nation lest that new birth should
have been in vain. From the name of
the day itself does one find inspira-
ton. Decoration day, says one; Memo
rial day, corrects his brother. Yet both
are right. Put too soon it Will be Me
mortal day to all. With garlands now
you deck the final bivouac of your
brother and then gather to recall that
past, which is yours in memory.
But you, veterans of the Grand
Army of the Republic, you are the real
true orators of the day. Youth may at
tempt to interpret to those about him
the echo of your deeds, but yours is
the visible cloquence of action. Yours
the language of fact, and the message
ii of If :nnrificp If
duty done as with faltcring step, pallid
cheek. palsied hand and empty sleeve,
you speak in accents of love. Think
not that this is an occasion merely lor
eulogy of the departed and praise of
the present. The men whose lives were
given and the others whose lives Wero
offered that this nation might long en-
durc all free, need no word of tulsone
praise Eternal truths, however oft re-
neated, never become hackneyed, and
when we as a nation, subscribe to Such
a truth in the phrase which epitomlZes
this government as one, of, for and by
the people, the fullest measure OF tri-
butte is rendered to them.
But when AZ years ago there sound
ed forth the trumpet that should never
beat retreat, these men answering,
then spoke to the world and when on
these recurring Memorial days the
trumpet again is sounded it is to call
tire youth of the land not to arms but
to hearken while the lives, the deeds
and the deaths of these boys in blue
shall awaken anew the sacred fires
and cause us to pledge anew un-
swerving loyalty to the genius of true
liberty.
You. then, are the speakers of the
day We your attentive hearers. Ana
what is the message you give us!
What would you fain have us do?
When on these recurring Memorial
DAYS we behold the slowly moving pro-
cession of you who survive and think
how oft your ranks have been depict
ed but never cffaced and with quick
ening pang are forced to admit that
the end of the sunset path is in sight,
that, alas, too rapidly now you arc
ma rchin- into the shadow impelled by
that irresistible victor. Time, we feel
fortunate indeed that it is given to us
to walk and work and talk with some
of those men who lived that which we
and those to follow must learn. recall
and revere. And while the spoken
word confines back the day agonc,
with it's deeds which must abide for
ever. the living presence of actors in
that great drama of history inspires
inevitably the blood of every son
worthy the heritage you fought for
and gloriously won.
To imbibe any lasting lesson from
DAYS like these ones ear must be at
tuned to the note you bring. To form
any idea of the adaptibilty of that
lesson to the present in which we
move and of which we are part we
must grasp the true underlying impel
ling motive of that great conflict for
which this day is set apart 'Lest we
forget"
We must know not the accident
which contributed not the circum
stances alone which attended, not the
fallanv which attempted to extenuate,
but the real proximate cause of the
Civil War. Because new states would
have been taken into this Union if the
wears 81 to '65 were 4 blank. CONNER
cial political rivalry between the North
and South was as inevitable as the
friendly emulation of a class room,