The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1913-07-09
Wilson's SPEECH
PRESIDENT DELIVERS INSPIRING
ADDRESS TO VETERANS
Asks NATION TO SERVE

sense as was Needeu fl1Cy 1earS
Ago-Appeals to All Right-Minded
Men for Aid.
A call to service for the reunited
nation that Friday through its regu-
lar army paid tribute to the fallen
heroes of Gettysburg, blue and gray,
was the dominant note of the speech
of Woodrow Wilson, president Of the
United States, at tht semi-centennial
reunion on the field where fifty years
ago the North and South strove for
the mastery. The struggle for su-
premacy, said the president was for
gotten, except for the priceless men,
cries of heroism. Still, said the na-
tons head, there exist opportunity
and need for service to the nation
which produced the men who faced
death and pain on the stricken field
fifty years ago.
The president said:
Friends and Fellow Citizens: !
need not tell you what the battle Of
Gettysburg meant. These gallant
men in blue and gray sit all about US
here. Many Of them met here upon
this ground in grim and deadly strug-
gle. Upon these famous fields and
hillsides their comrades died about
them. In their presence it were an
impertinence to discourse upon how
the battle went, how it ended, what
it signifed. But fifty years have
gone by since then, and l crave the
privilege of speaking to you for a
few minutes of what those fifty years
have meant.
'eWhat have they meant? They
have meant peace and union and Wig
or and the maturity and might Of a
great nation. How wholesome and
healing the peace has been! We
have found one another again as
brothers and comrades in arms, enc
mics no longer, generous friends
rather, our battles long past, the
quarrel orgotten-except that we
shall not fotget the splendid valor,
the manly devotion of the men then
arrayed against one apother, now
grasping hands and smiling into each
others eyes. How complete the uni
on has become and how dear to all
Of US, how unquestioned, how be-
nign and majestic, as State after
State has been added to this our
great family Of free men! HOW
handsome the vigor, the maturity,
the might of the great nation we
love with undivided hearts; how full
Of large and confident promise that a
life will be wrought out that Will
crown it's strength with gracious JUS
tice and with q happy welfare that
will touch all alike with deep con-
tentment! We are debtors to those
fifty crowded years; they have made
US heirs to mighty heritage.
"But do we deem the nation COM
plete and finished? These venerable
men crowding here to this famous
field have set US a great example OF
devotion and utter sacrifice. They
were willing to die that the people
might live. But their task is done.
Their day is turned into evening:
They look to us to perfect what they
established. Their work is handed
on to us, to be done in another way
but not in another spirit. Our day
is not over; it is upon US in full tloe.
"Have affairs paused? Does the
nation stand still? Is what nifty
years have wrought since those days
of battlefield finished, rounded out'
and completed? Here is great peo-
n1e great with every force that has
ever beaten in the lifeblood OF man
kind. And it is secure. There IS no
one within its borders, there is no
power among the nations OF tne
earth, to make it afraid. But mas II
vet squared itself with its own great
standards set up at its birth, Wnen
II made that first noble, naive appeal
to the moral judgment of MANKIND
TO take notice that government hao
now at last been established Wnlcn
was to serve men, not matters? IL is
secure in everything except the sa1is-
faction that it's life is right, adjusted
TO the uttermost to the standards Oh
righteousness and humanity. Inc
days of sacrifice and cleansing are
not closed. We have harder things
to DO than were done in the heroic
days of war, because harder to see
clearly, requiring more vision, more
calm balance Of judgment, more
candid searching of the very springs
of right.
Look around you upon the held
of Gettysburg! Picture the array
the fierce heats and agony OF battle
column hurled against column, bat
tery believing to battery! Valor?
Yes! Greater no man shall see IN
war; and self-sacri6ce, and loss to
the uttermost; the high recklessness
Of exalted devotion which does not