The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-06-07
VETERANS GATHER TO PAY HONOR TO
 DEAD COMRADES
ICoptip11ad f,

| lTOIIl T lTSl IdSS.J seeds of disease that followed him all the days of his life?
 Do you ask who he was? He was | union soldier, and was found in every | regiment and every company.
 He is with us tonight, probably form, very different from those early sixties, when he sturdily marched forth, with eye blazing and head erect. to fight for country and for us; and
 with us in picture. beaming on us as If in benediction from afar where all IS
 peace and contentment-
 It is forty-four years since the last shot was fired in the great rebellion; forty-four years since an army Of over a million men was marshaled for the last grand review What a lesson in patriotism must have been the trl- umphant march of the mighty hosts of Grant, Sherman, Logan and Han cock, as with flags perhaps in tatters. but with their glory undimmed, they swept down the broad avenue of our | Among those returning heroes were many whose faces you will look upon 1 tonight. What a striking illustration of the inherent power of this republic | that this mighty and disciplined army, having accomplished it's great purpose, could disappear almost overnight, to again resume on farm, in workshop and in office, the peaceful pursuits of | lifei
 We must not forget that more than | two million men offered their lives for the preservation of the Union, and
 that except for the heroic sacrifice of | the "boys in blue" we would now be
 calling attention to the forty-eighth anniversary of the Confederate states. 1 Despite the great privation and sac rifice of our Revolutionary fathers, ! who builded so well that the whole
 world has since marveled at their won derful achievement, the past would have been a proven failure. We would now have standing armies in every state and custom houses on every
 border And dissolution of the states | would have led to farther disfntegra- | ton, and we should have witnessed the spectacle that Webster in his great never see-'"The broken and dishonor-
 ed fragments of a once glorious Un- ion, states discovered, discordant, bel ligerent."
 Al nation outlives its tragedies and
 only a small part of our population
 has any personal recollection of the terrors and agonies of the Civil War. 'By their fruits ye shall know them.
 and measured by this biblical stand
 ard, the Union soldiers did the great
 est work that has ever been done for the nation. From this great strife has grown a harvest of blessings
 which have enriched the civilized world This has become the haven of the wretched and oppressed of all na- tions, and ours is the finest land of all the earth.
 Other wars were fought for con
 quest, revenge, diplomacy and the like.
 It was thus with the wars waged by
 Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon and even
 Wellington. It is related that years after its completion; General Jack
 strongly criticized in Congress and
 was Vindicated by Judge Douglas in a
 masterly speech. Afterwards meet
 ing the Judge the General cordially
 thanked him and said: I always
 knew I was right in what I. did at
 New Orleans, but I never knew why
 I was right until I read your speech
 But there can be no doubt as to the
 corroding curse of the cause of the
 ters of fire. These brave boys offered,
 and many of them laid down their
 lives for principles, which have since his come to pass that all the people of this great nation, South as well as North, now believe that whole free people is better than a divided nation, and that the great Emancipator was clearly right when he used the mem orable words that a nation cannot ex- ist half-slave and half-free.
 The result of the terrible sacrifice of this patriotic band is a nation glori- fled on earth. Its glorious mission is to illustrate to the world the blessings of peace and liberty. and it's national possibilities are well nigh boundless In Texas alone you could bury Ger many and have room enough left for England and Wales. In the single state of California you could bury the
 British Isles, Switzerland and Bel gium. It is asserted by competent au- thority that America can sustain a larger population than Europe, Asia and Africa combined, and, if it can it ultimately will. s
 The great historian, Lard Macauley, r,f av,f cannot permanently endure because it has within itself the seeds of it's own decay. But what patriotic American will admit that Macaulay has prop there are ominous portents, and, as at the time of our Civil War, the danger is entirely from within. This danger is usually some large corporations, corrupt and audacious, securing from servile lawmakers special privileges and unfair advantage at the expense of the great body of the people Con slider the spectacle now presented at Washington of increasing the cost of cheap stockings, cheap clothes and other articles that are necessaries or the masses, while the mere suggestion of an income tax that would fall on favored few is howled down by Sen ate composed largely of millionaires.
 Even England, whose laws and lib- critics are often compared with ours, apportions differently the burdens of taxation. Y ale COIleSe recently re- ceived a oequest from a British citi- zen, but before it wsa transferred to this country, one-sixth was retained for the British Treasury. The tax is progressive and falls only on the few who have been favored by the law of the realm. When William Waldorf Astor transfers to London the mil lions obtained from rents on his New York property, acquired by reason of the security and protection afforded by this government, he does not pay one cent as an income tax. I leave it with you as a proper thought on this occa sion, whether some sort of a grad | uated income and inheritance tax is not to be preferred to the present un- necessarily heavy tax on sugar, l clothes, shoes, stockings and other | necessaries of life.
 These dangers, while serious and | ar1di while affecting 1