The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-04-28
CAPTAIN P. B. MASTIN
 WAS MEMORIAL DAY ORATOR
Impressive Exercises Were Held in
 Historic 0akwood.
spIendid Civic and Military Parade Moved Through Historic Streets. Birthplace of the Ceafederacy Was Given an Honorary sa- iuse-Thousand. Lined
 tAs Streets as the
 Parade Passed.

On q perfect April day. clear-lit and eunshiny. day on which the earth, Fresh and green, from storm shows most beautiful, Montgomery paid her tribute to the Cause and to the dead Nation, about which her own history and her own traditions are so closely snterwoven.
 magnificent par. le rs ssed along the streets of the city. whirn was once the capital of the Cuasa1craey and which remains and will always remain the capital of Alaba.nl--.his procession of old and young, women and chi'dr e., passed in the shadow of those stIiId : ings where history was made, And that history will always command the worlds unchanging interest in the fu- true years. In the verdant shades of Oakwood. its trees and grass. softly and solen1nly beautiful under the per feet April sun, the procession halted.
 It was fit scene for such an exer- else Perhaps in all the South there is no spot more haIlowed by the dead of the Confederacy. Precious and historic dust is wrapped by oakwood's clay, and for It's beauty and ornamentation na- tures each spring. seems to reserve the finest and best of it's yerdant beauties In this spot of loveliness, where the foot of the living trod lightly upon the clay that holds the dust of the
 
 ed. Under the shades of .he caks, With the graves of the thousands of Confederate soldiers dotting the green and splendid hillside the sole.nn and beautiful exercises that re ach year prepared by the Ladies Memorial As- sociation were held. And here in the Souti's own way. the South's own dead were honored.
 Speaker of the Day.
 The speaker of the day was himself a gallant Confederate soldier. who had his baptism of fire in that terrible and bloody fight at Shiloh. Capt. Peter B. Mastin. IL was fitting that such as he should speak of the Confederate sol- dier, for he was with them and of them. A young lieutenant. he fought at Shi- loh, and he lived to fight bn other fields but none so bloody. Captain Mastin ss now a member of the Legis- lature from Montgomery County, but as fiercely an adherent of the GAnse of the Confederacy as he was when he left for the war in sight of the pe,,cetul scene, in which he was one the principal figures.
 The parade formed along Bibb Street. A few feet away is the old white two storied building which houSed Presi- dent Jefferson Davis and his family in the early and glorious days of the Confederacy But the spot on wh ;cb 1t was formed witnessed forty-seven years ago scene which is a part of that history which will never die On that same spot. Jefferson Davis entered carriage while a slender military escort presented arms-entered the car riage to be driven along part Gf the route of yesterdays procession fo take the oath of ofice as President Cf the States. Es The pomp and power of a 'estored and prosperous people were shown ;n The long parade which threaded ts way through Montgomery's streets yester- day afternoon. But to those who knew, and remembered it's own pecu- liar interest. it's feature which detach- ed 1t and made it separate from every other memorial procession of the South was the historic walls under which 1t