Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1911-06-08
THURSDAY. JUNE 5, 1911.
The Past Like a Dream.

dream. Again we are in the great
struggle for national life. We hear
the sounds of preparation the music
of boisterous drums-the silver voices
of horoic bugles. We see thousands of
assembIages, and hear the appeals of
orators; we see the pale cheeks of
women, and the flushed faces of men;
and in those asseInblages we see all the
dead whose dust we have covered with
flowers. We lose sight of them no
more. We are with them when they
enlist in the great army of freedom
We see them part with those they love.
Some are walking for the last time in
quiet, woody places, with the maidens
they adore. We hear the whisperings
and the sweet vows of eternal love as
they lingeringly part forever. Others
are bending over cradles, kissing
babies that are asleep. Some are
receiving the blessings of old men.
Some are parting with mothers who
hold them and press them to THAR
hearts again and again, and say moth
ing. Kisses and tears-tears and
kisses--divine mingling of agony and
love! And some are talking with wives
and endeavoring with brave words,
spoken in the old tones, to drive from
their hearts the awful fear. We see
them part. We see the wife standing
in the door with the babe in her arms
standing in the sunlight sobbing-at
the turn of the road hand waves
she answers by holding high in her low
ing arms the child. He is gone, and
forever!
We see them as they march proudly
away under the Haunting flags, keep
ing time to the grand, wild music of
war marching down the streets of the
great cities-through the towns and
across the prairies to the fields
of glory, to do and to die for the eter-
nal right.
We go with them, one and all. We
are by their side on the CORY fields-in
the hospitals of pain-on all the weary
marches. We stand guard with them
in the wild storm and under the quiet
stars. We are with them in Tavines
run ming with blood--in the burrows of
old fields. We are with them between
contending hosts, unable to move, wild
with thirst, the life slowly ebbing away
among the withered leaves. We ees
them pierced by balls and torn with
shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in
the whirlwind of the charge, where
men become iron, with nerves of steel.
We are with them in the prisons of
hatred and famine; but human speech
can never tell what they endured.
We are at home when the news comes
that they are dead. We see the maiden
in the shadow Of her first sorrow. We
see the silvered head of the old man
bowed with the last grief.
The past rises before US, and we see
four millions of human beings governed
by the lash-we see them bound hanC
and foot--we hear the strokes of crue
whips-we see the hounds tracking
women through tangled swamps. W.
see babes sold from the breasts o.
mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Out
rage infnitel
Four million bodies in chains fou
million souls in letters. All the sacre'
relations Of wife, mother, father an,
child trampled beneath the brutal fee'
of might. And this was done under
our own beautiful banner Of the free
The past rises before us. We hea
the roar and shrek of the bursting
shell. The broken letters fall. Th'
heroes died. We look. Instead o
slaves we see men and women and chill
dren. The wand Of progress touche
the auction block, the slave-pen. tn
whipping post, and we see homes an
firesides and schoolhouses and books
and where all was want and crime an
cruelty we see the faces Of the free.
These heroes are dead. They die
FOR liberty--they died for Us. They ar
ct rest They sleep in the land the
made free, under the flag they rem
dered stainless, under the solemn pine
fhe sd hemlocks, the fearful willows
md The embracing vines. They slee
beneath the shadows of the clouds
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