The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-05-27

that all men are created equal. think
Of those terrible days OF adversely anu
discourag cement, days SO dark thao no |
raw of lighl. seemed penetrating the
gloom. when the heroic soul OF the
great commander seemed all oue
crushed. when tottering army
marched shoeless through the sno"
or gathered shivering about scanty
camp fires.
And think, too, of our second pap
tism of blood, baptism more grim
and terrible than the first. think OF
that true, noble man who stood amid
the shadows of that awful time, SO
great, so earnest, SO faithful, even I'M
til the breaking of the day, when MS
life went out, that consummate NOW
er of American manhood, the grand
est character of American history, Abb
raham Lincoln. And think of that
grand army that he called from farm
and factory, from shop and school.
Hear them now as they respond, I'VE
are coming, father Abraham, three
hundred thousand strong"
But it is not 100000, but 2,77S,OOO
strong. An army that is the wonder
of the world the salvation of the ma
ton and the preserver of our liberties.
Need we speak of their deafness val
or upon more than five hundred battle
fields? See them as they move I'M
f1inchingly forth.
.'Stormed by shot and shell
Into the jaws of death
Into the mouth Of hell
Now they are at Donnelson; now
hidden by the smoke of Antietam; now
engaged in three days Titanic con-
flict at Gettysburg; now up the steep
ascent of Mission Ridge, FIVE hundred
feet sheer upward. No wonder the
confederate woman who was looking
with me upon the scene of that awful
charge a few years ago, EXCLAIMED,
I'VE ought to have whipped them
/ don't see how the Yankees did 1t.
And then, after little pause, We'll,
am Presbyterian and believe IN
fore-ordination. ] don't see how else
they could have done it, And now
they are moving grandly on the sea
and now they are passing in review
! through the streets of the national
capital. But they are not all there.
1 Three hundred and fifty thousand of
them are not there. And l think OF
those who have been pierced by balls
and torn by shells, and of those who
| have been shut UP in prisons of hatred
and famine and or those who are
sleeping the dreamless sleep in un
known graves somewhere undel
southern skies. | think, too, of the
homes where anxiety has long KEEP
vigil now stricken, the silver-haired
father bowed down in his great grief
The mother sustained only by he1
unalterable faith. The young wife
sitting under the shadow of her frs
sorrow. And l think, too, of how
freely and unselfishly and how roy
ally all this sacrifice was made.
And now | look again to this hous'
of our national life to the freedom AM
comfort and the blessing we are en-
ljoying in it, and I say here is some
thing of the cost of it all. "Othe
men labored and we are entered int
their labors.'
And again / think of
@ The house of material comfort
and conyeniences in which we ar
living today, and what wonderful
house 1t is.
We read of the hardships and sui
ferings of early times, of the diff
culties and discomforts with whic
more primitive civilization had to COZ
tend Yes, many of you can even re
member some of these things an
surrounded by all the comforts c
today. it seems but a dream to u:
And we say, How could men liv
thus, stirring the ground with
crooked stick and reaping their graf
with a sickle hook; putting forth upo
the mighty deep in fragile sail-boa
depending for light upon tallow dip
For the failing sight of old age theI
was no remedy and for the decayin
tooth. no restoration. They kne
nothing of modern conveniences, I
the telephone or appendicitis. The
had never seen trolley car or
microbe. But now why have we MOI
comforts today2 How have the
Gomez And / think OF the iDvento
and the discoveries and the thinkel
who have been building this hou:
of present comfort and convenient
think OF how they have toiled
the face of discourag cement; I thin
OF the opposition they have met al
the sneers that have been flung
them. l think of Columbus snackle
in prison; / think OF Fulton toiling {
in anxiety and under the pelting stor
of ridicule: think of Field fightil
down obstacle after obstacle almo
siugle-handed.
As you sit in your home, runnil
up seam after seam so quickly al
so easily upon your Standard or 70
Domestic or your Singer, think
Elias Howe pursuing his idea al
coming, with MS family, his wife al
three children, almost to the poi
Of starvation in that pursuit.