Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1912-12-11
EPOCH MAKING SPEECH
So Says William j. Bryan of Address
Of President Taft.
THE UNION OF THE
NORTH AND THE SOUTH
Mastery Address at Opening SEES.
sion of United Daughters
of the COnfed-
eracy.

In recent issue of The Common.
er, published by Hon. William ]
Bryan, he pays high compliment to
President Taft in printing as the first
article in that notable democratic
publication, the address of the latter
at the opening session of the United
Daughters of the Confederacy, at
Continental Memorial Hall, Washing
ton, d. c., Nov 18th. Mr.. Bryan
characterizes it as one of his greatest
speeches, and it is handed to us by a
prominent democrat of the city, who
is also an admirer of the dignity, the
patriotism, the sincerity and the hon.
esty of the President. We are glad
to reprint it:
Ladies of the United Daughters of
the Confederacy|I beg to welcome
you to Washington. You have cap
tured this city beautiful and made 1t
more lovely by your presence. AS
its temporary head, / give you the
freedom of the city, and recognize
that in what you have done, you have
founded a shrine and an altar here
which will be visited in the future by
many a faithful pilgrim.
If the occasion which brings you
here were the mourning at the bier
of lost cause. know that the nice
sense of propriety of fine old social
school would have prevented you
from inviting me, as the president of
the United States, to be present. You
are not here to mourn or support a
cause. You are here to celebrate,
and justly celebrate, the heroism, the
courage and the sacrifice to the ut
termost of your fathers and your
brothers and your mothers and your
sisters, and of aH.your kin, in cause
which they believed in their hearts
to be right, and for which they We're
willing to lay down their lives. That
cause ceased to be, except in history,
now more than half century ago.
1t was one which could elicit from
half a nation, and brave and war
like race, four years struggle in
which lives, property, and everything
save honor, are willingly parted with
for it's sake. So great was the gen.
ius for military leadership of many
of your generals, so adaptable was
the individual of your race to effec-
tive war-like training, so full of pat
riotic sacrifice were your people
that now when all the bitterness Of
the struggle on our part of the north
has passed away, we are able to share
with you of the south your just pride
in your men and women who carried
on the unexampled contest to an ex-
llaustion that few countries ever suf-
fered. The calm observer and his
torian, whatever his origin, may now
rejoice in his heart that the Lord or
dained II as 1t is. But no son OF the
south and no son of the north, with
any spark in him of pride of race,
can fail to rejoice in that common
heritage of courage and glorious sac
rifice that we have in the story of
the civil war and of both sides of the
civil war.
Ii has naturally taken long time
for the spirit of hostility that such
an internecine struggle develops to
completely die away. OF course 1t
lasted less time with those who
were the victors and into whose
homes and domestic lives the hor-
rors of war were not directly thrust.
The physical evidences of war were
traceable in the south for decades
after they had utterly disappeared in
the north in the few places in which
they existed. Then there are condi-
lions in the south which are a cons
tant reminder of the history OF. the
past. Until within recent decades,
prosperity has not shed her boon Of
comfort upon the south with as gem
erous hand as upon the north.
Hence those of us at the north who
have been sometimes impatient at a
little flash now and then of the old
sectional antagonism are unreason-
able in our failure to allow for these
marked difI1Sensess
For mapgf eas6saftsr the war., the
republican party. which hae Carried
the nation through the war 70 Its
successful conclusion, was in control
OF the administration of the govern
ssment, and it was impossible for the
southerner to escape the feeling that
he was linked in his allegiance TO an
rSalien nation and one with whose des-
tiny he found it difficult to Identify