Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1911-05-30

Living as we do in the greatest nation
on the face of the globe, everyone of
US should realize that the present great
ness of our country could never have
been attained but for the sacrifices of
those who fought the civil war to sue
cess.
The preservation of the union was
the whole foundation upon which our
present greatness has been reared
They have delivered to US a country
united and grown beyond the widest
dreams of its founders. With their
blood they established the principles Of
freedom and unity, and with the pres
ent and rising generation rests the
duty of maintaining and strengthening
those principles; of preserving for fu-
ture generations the blessings which
have been bought with the valor of
American volunteers and the blood CT
patriots We cannot escape the re-
sponsibility which rests upon us, nor
the judgment which future generations
will pass upon us for the way we have
discharged our trust.
we shall be false to ourselves and
false TO those whose memory we honor
this day if We fail in this undertaking.
How can we best succeed in it? The
answer is plain. By becoming better
citizens l know of no better way TO
uplift the standard of our citizenship
and thus make certain the preservation
of those blessings which have been
handed down TO US, than by taking TO
heart in our everyday life the lessons
taught us by those who participated in
that war. We should emulate that
spirit of determination and devotion to
duty which made the armies of Grant
and Sherman the greatest fighting ma
chine the world has ever seem that
kindly and Christian spirit which made
Lincoln the most dearly beloved of all
the great men in the American hall of
fame
We cannot do better than to Guilt
vate within ourselves the characters
tics OF those men who stand out as
great figures Of the civil war. Let us
remember that immortal saying of Cen
eral Grant TO General Buckner at Fort
Donelson: I propose to move immedi-
ately upon your works That was cour-
age-one of the prime requisites of
high citizenship. Let US fix in our
mind that famous sentence of his when
his army lay before Richmond in the
spring of 1864: / propose to fight it
out on this line if il takes all summer
That was determination. II did take
all summer, all winter, and a part of
the following spring, but when the con-
federate army finally yielded to the in
eyitable. il was the same Grant who
declined to accept the sword which Lee
preferred, but instead ordered the men
of the vanquished army to retain their
side arms and their horses, and re-
quested them TO return to their homes.
That was generosity. No person who
will take 10 heart these incidents can
fail to become better man and a bet
ter citizen But | cannot refrain from
adding one more brief quotation-one
so expressive of the lofty character of
Lincoln. Ii is familiar to you all, but
il cannot be repeated too often. II is
from his second inaugural address de-
liyeTed in March, 1865, when the war
was almost at an end. For four years
he had been the target of more abuse,
Misrepresentation and villification than
any president had ever been, and yet
in the face of all this, he uttered this
Christian sentiment straight from his
heart: With malice toward none, with
charity for all"