River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1913-07-10
VETERANS HEAR Y
The PRESIDENT
MIR. Wilson Delivers Address at
Gettysburg Celebration.
DRAWS LESSON FROM BATTLE
Declares Great Army of the People
Must Fight Peacefully to
Perfect the Nation
All Love.

Gettysburg, Pa, July National
day in the semi-centennial celebration
of the Battle of Gettysburg was made
especially notable by an address de-
nvered by President Woodrow Wilson.
In his audience were many thousands
of the veterans who fought in the
great battle, as well as a great throng
OF other visitors.
The presidents address follows:
Friends and Fellow Citizens: need
not tell you what the battle of Gettys-
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 hillsides
their comrades died about them. In
their presence it we're an impertinenc@
to discourse upon how the battle went
how it ended, what it signified! But
so years have gone by since then and
crave the privilege of speaking to
you for a few minutes of what those
so years have meant.
What have they meant? They have
meant peace and union and vigor, and
the maturity and might of q great ma
ton. How wholesome and healing the
peace has been! We have found one
another again as brothers and COM
rades in arms, enemies no longer, gen
erous friends rather, our battles long
past, the quarrel orgotten-except
that we shall not forget the splendid
uclor tho manly deviation of tho mon
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 unquestioned, how benign and
majestic, as state after state has been
added to this great family of free
men! How handsome the vigor, the
maturity, the might of the great ma
ton we love with undivided hearts;
how full of large and confident prom
Ise that a life will be wrought out
that will crown It's strength with gra-
cious justice and happy welfare that
will touch all alike with deep content
ment! We are debtors to those so
crowded years; they have made us
heirs to a mighty heritage.
Nation Not Finished.
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 estab-
lished 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 still? Is it what the SO
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 life blood of mankind
| And it is secure. There is no one
within it's borders, there Is no
power among the nations of the earth,
| to make 1t afraid. But has it yet
squared 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 salts
faction that it's life is right, adjusted
! to the uttermost to the standards OF
righteousness and humanity. The
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