The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1913-07-11
PRESIDENT WILSON'S SPEECH
AT GETTYSBURG REUNION

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 bat
tie. 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
signified. But fifty years have gone
by since then, and l crave the priv
ilege 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 Wig
our, 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, enemies no
longer, generous friends rather, our
battles long past, the quarrel forgot
ten-except that we shall not forget
the splendid valour, 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
this our great family of free men!
How handsome the viguor, the ma
turity, the might of the great nation
we love with undivided hearts; how
full of large and confident promise
at life will be wrought out that will
crown it's strength with gracious JUS
tice and with happy welfare that
will touch all alike with deep con-
tentment! We are debtors to those
fifty crowned years; they have made
us heirs to mighty heritage.
Example of Devotion.
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 tide.
Have affairs paused? Does the
nation stand still? Is what the fifty
years have wrought since those days
of battle finished, rounded out, and
completed? Here is a great people,
great with every force that has ever
beaten in the lifeblood of mankind.
And 1t is secure. There is no one
within its borders, there is. no power
among the nations of the earth, to
make it afraid. But has it yet squar-
ed itself with its own great standards
set up at its birth, when it made that
first noble, naive appeal to the moral
judgment of mankind to take notice
that a government had now at last
been established which was to serve
men, not masters? 1t is secure in
everything except the satisfaction
that its life is right, adjusted to the
uttermost standards of righteous
ness and humanity. The days of sac
rifice 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, requir-
ing more vision, more calm balance
of judgment, more candid search
ing of the very springs of right.
Valor and Self Sacrifice.
Look around upon the field of
Gettysburg! Picture the array, the
fierce heats and agony of battle, COL
umn hurled against column, battery
believing to battery! Valour? Yes!
Greater no man shall see in war; and
self-sacrifice, and loss to the utter
most; the high recklessness of exalt-
ed devotion which does not count the
cost. We are made by these tragic,
epic things to know what it costs to
make a nation-the blood and sacri-
flee of multitudes of unknown men
lifted to a great stature in the view
of all generations by knowing no
limit to their manly willingness to
serve. In armies thus marshaled
from the ranks of free men you will
see, as 1t were, nation embattled,
the leaders and the led, and may
know If, you will, how little except
in form its action differs in days of
peace from its action in days Of war
May we break camp now and be at
ease? Are the forces that fight for
the nation dispersed, disbanded, gone