The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-11-26

the things of the soul, was shown by
your brothers who wore the gray.
Dreadful was the suffering, dreadful
the loss. of the civil war. Yet il
stands alone among wars in this, that,
now that the wounds are healed, the
memory of the mighty deeds OF valoT
performed on one side no less than On
the other has become the common her
itase of al our people in every quar-
ter OF this country.
Secretary Was Confederate.
The completeness with which this
IS true is shown by what is occurring
mere today. We meet together TO
raise a monument to a great Union
general in the presence of many of
the survivors of the Union army; and
the secretary of war, the man at the
mead of the army, who, by virtue OF
his Office, occupies a 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 il is
not only possible, but seems SO en-
tirely natural as to excite no comment
whateve:
There is another point in General
Sheridan's career which it is good for
all of us 10 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 a QueS-
ton of principle, of purpose, of ideal
ism, of character, that it is not a mat
ter of birthplace, or creed, Or line of
descent. Here in this country the rep
resentatives of many old-wOrld races
are being fused together into new
type, type the main features of which
are already determined, and were de-
termined at the time of the Revolu-
war; for the crucfble in which
all the new types are melted into one
was shaped from 1875 to 1889, and our
nationality was definitely fixed in all
its essentials by the men of Washing
toms day. Inc strains will not con-
tinue to exist separately in this coun |
try as in the old world. They will be
combined in one; and of this new type
those men will best represent what is
Ioftiest 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 wrong
doing themselves; 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 near
pr the day when justice and peace |
shall prevail within our own borders |
and in our relations with all foreign |
powers.
Much of the usefulness of any Ca |
-eer must lie in the impress that it !
makes upon. and the lessons that it |
caches to, the generations that come |
after. We of this generation have /
our own problems to solve, and the |
condition of our solving them is that |
We shall all work together as Ameri- |
IAN citizens without regard to diifec-
ences of sections or creed or birth |
place, copying, not the divisions which !
30 lamentably sundered our fathers |
rom one another. but the spirit of |
BURNING devotion to duty which drove
hem forward. each to do the right AS
t was given him to see the right, in
he great years when Grant. Farragu!,
Sherman, Thomas and Sheridan, when
lee and Jacksony and the Johnstons, |
he valiant men of the North and the
yaliant men OF the South, fought to
inish the great civil war. Thcv did
lot themselves realize. in the bitter
less of the struggle, that the blood
md grim suffering marked the death
hroes of what was worn out, and the
birth pangs of a new and more slo-
iOus national life. Mighty is the
Heritage which we have received from
he men of the mighty days. We, in
)ur turn, must grid up our loin5 10
meet the neN issues with the same
tern coureEe. and resolute adherence
o an ideIl, which marked our fathers
Who belonged to the generation of the
nan III whose honor we CONNIE morale
his monument TODAY.