The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-07-04
President Wilson Delivered Short, Stirring
Address Today to Veterans
Historic Battlefield
|WHAT THOSE FIFTY YEARS HAVE MEANT
War Fitted Us for Action and Action Never
Ceases---P Prosperity Outlasts Wars
and Errors.

GETTYSBURG, July 4.--President
wilson's address today on Gettysburg
battlefield was as follows:
Friends and Fellow Citizens: need
mot tell you what the battle of Getys-
burg 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 struggle.
Upon these famous fields and hill
sides their comrades died about them.
In their presence it were an impert-
1nence to discourse upon how the
battle went, how 1t ended, what It
|signified! But fifty years have gone
by since then, and crave the privi-
lege OF speaking to you for a few
minutes of what those fifty years
have meant.
What have they meant? They have
meant peace and union and vigour,
and the maturity and might of a great
5nation. How wholesome and healing
kthe peace has been! We have found
None another again as brothers and
comrades in arms, enemies no long
.aer, generous friends rather, our
battles long past. the quarrel forgot.
Item except that we shall not forget
the splendid yalour, the manly devo-
tion Of the men then arrayed against
one another, now grasping hands and
smiling into each Others eyes. How
complete the union has become and
how dear to all of US, how unques-
toned, how benign and majestic, as
state after state has been added to
How handsome the vigour, the ma
turity, the might of the great nation
we love with undivided hearts; how
full of large and confident promise
that life will be wrought out that
will crown It's strength with gracious
Justice and with happy welfare that
will touch all alike with deep content
ment We are debtors to those fifty
4 crowded years; they have made US
4 heirs to mighty heritage.
] But do we deem the nation com
n plete and finished? These venerable
Il men crowding here to this famous
81 field have set us great example of
I 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; 1t is upon us In full tide.
Have affairs. paused? Does the
nation stand still9 Is what the fifty
years have wrought since those days
of battle finished, rounded out, and
completed? Here Is great people,
great with every force that has ever
beaten in the lifeblood of mankind
And 1t Is secure. There is no ore
within It's borders, there is no power
among the nations OF the earth. to
make It afraid But has 1t yet squared
itself with its own great standards
set up at its birth, when 1t made that
first noble, naive appeal to the moral
Judgment of mankind to take notice
that government had now at last
been established which was to serve
men, not masters? 1t is secure In
/ everything except the satisfaction
that It's life is right. adjusted to the
uttermost to the standards Of right
eousness and humanity. The days oi
sacrifice and cleansing are not
3 closed. We have harder things to dc
Il than were done in, the heroic days ci
81 war, because harder to see clearly
81 recurring more vision. more calm
i balance OF judgment. more candle
4 searching of the very springs of right
Look around you upon the field o.
i Gettysburg! Picture the array. the
4 fierce heats and agony of battle. col
umn hurled against column, battery
believing to battery! Valour? Yes,
Greater no man shall see in war; ant
self-sacrffice. and loss to the utter
most; the high recklessness Of exalt
ed devotion which does not count thu
cost. We are made by these tragic
epic things to know what it costs t.
make nationthe blood and sacri
flee of multitudes of unknown mel