The National tribune., 1908-12-03
AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.
Matter of Principle, Indepc,tieE
OF Race or Reli-ion-High Tribute to


Is Matter of Principle, Independent
OF Rnce or Relirion-High Tribute to
Veterans.
president Roosevelt's speech at the
unvailing of the Sheridan monument:
II Is eminently fitting that the Ma
tons lilustrious men-thc men who
loom as heroes before the eyes of our
people-should be fittingly commemor-
ated here at the National Capital. and I
am glad indeed to take part in the
unvailing of this statue to Gen. Sheri-
dan. His name will always stand high
on the list of American worthless
Not only was he a great General, but
he showed his greatness with that touch
OF originality which we call genius In
| deed, this quality of brilIiance has been
| in one sense a disadvantage to his repu-
tatlon, for it has tended to overshadow
his solid ability. We tend to think of
MIN only as the dashing cavalry leader,
whereas he was in reality not only that.
but alss great commander.
"Of course, the fact in his career
most readily recognized was his mas
terry in the necessarily modern art
| of handling masses of modern cavalry
so as to give them the fullest possible
effect, not only in the ordinary opera
| tions of ca Jalry which precede and fol-
low battle, but in the battle itself
But in addition he showed in the civil
war that he was a first-class army COM
mander, both as subordinate of Grant
and when in Independent command
His record in the Valley Campaign, and
again from Five Forks to Appomattox.
is one difficult to parallel in military
history
After the close of the great war in
field where there was scant glory to
be won by the General-in-C Chief, he rem
dered signal service which has gone
almost unnoticed for in the tedious,
weary Indian wars on the great plains
1T was he who developed in thorough
going fashion the system of campaign
ing in Winter, which, at the cost of
bitter hardship and peril, finally broke
down the banded strength of those
formidable warriors, the horse Indians.
From Bottom to Top of Ladder.
His career was typically American,
for from plain beginnings he rose to the
highest military position in our land.
We honor his memory itself; and more
over, as in the case of the other great
commanders of his day, his career SYM
bolizes the careers of all those men
who in the years of the Nations direst
need sprang to the front to risk every
thing, including life itself, and to spend
the days of their strongest young man
hood in the valorous conflict for an
ideal
often we Americans are taunted
with having only a material ideal The
rempty folly of the taunt is sufficiently
shown by the presence here to-day of
you men of the Grand Army you, the
comrades of the dead General, the men
who served with and under him. In all
history we have no greater instance of
suDordination of SELF of the exalting of
n lofty ideal over merely material we'll
being among the people of a great Ma
ton than was shown by our own people
in 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 broth
ers who wore the gray. Dreadful was
the suffering, dreadful the loss, of the
civil war. Yet it stands alone among
wars in tins, that, now that the wounds
are healed, the memory of the mighty
deeds of valor performed on one side
no less than on the other has become
the common heritage of all our people
in every quarter of this country.
'The completeness with which this
is true is shown by what is occurring
here to-day. We meet together. to raise
monument to a great Union General,
IN the presence of many of the surviy-
orS of the Union army; and the Secre-
tary of War, the man at the head of the
Army, who, by virtue of his office. oc-
cupies a special relation to the celebra-
ton, is himself 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 it is not only possi-
Bile, but seems so entirely natural as to
excite no comment whatever.