The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1913-07-09
WILSON'S GETTYSBURG SPEECH
LESSONS OF THE PAST HAVE AP-
PLICATION TO PRESENT
PROBLEMS.
Soldiers of Peace Have aS Great a
Duty to Perform for The Country
as Did Those Who Fought and Fell
i'm Battle Array on the Field OF
Gettysburg.


service for the reunited nation that
today through its regular army paid
tribute to the fallen heroes Of Gettys-
burg, blue and gray, was the domi-
nant note of the speech of Woodrow
Wilson, president of the United State"
at the semi-centennial reunion op y
field where so years ago the ~
and South strove for the M - e
struggle for supremacy, ~ ,.'res-
ident, was forgotten CO >for the
priceless memoir heroism
Still, said the W cad, there ex-
list opportunit, need for service
to the nation .hich produced the
men who faced death and pain on the
stricken field so years ago.
The president said:
Friends and Fellow Citizens: /
need not tell you what the battle o.
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 struggle
Upon these famous fields and hillsdes
their comrades died about them. In
their presence it were an impertinence
to discourse upon how the battle went,
how it ended, what it signhed! 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 mean
What have they meant? They
have meant peace and union and vigor
and the maturity and might of a great
nation. How wholesome and heal
ing 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 valor, the manly devo-
ton 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 vigor, the ma
turity, 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 its strength with gracious
justice and with q happy welfare that
will touch all alike with deep con-
tentment! We are debtors to those
so crowded years; they have made us
heirs to n mighty heritage
But do we deem the nation COM
plete and finished? These venerable
men crowding here to this famous
field have set us n great example of
devotion and utter sacrifice. They
were willing to die that the people
might live. But their task is done
X.
look to us to perfect what they estab-
lished. Their work is handed on "a
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 SO years
have wrought since those days of bat
tlelield finished, rounded out, and
completed? Here is n great people,
great with every force that has even
beaten in the lifeblood of mankind
And it is secure. There $ no one
within its borders, there is no power
among the nations Of the earth. to
make it afraid. But has it yet squared
itself with its own great standards
set up at its birth, when il 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 |
everything except the satisfaction that |
its life is right, adjusted To the utter |
most to the standards of righteousness :
ana humanity. The days Of sacrifice .
ana cleansing are not closed. We
have harder things To do than were
done in the heroic days of war, be
cauS" harder to see clearly, requiring
more vision, more calm balance of (.
Judgment, Il more candid searching OF
the very springs Of right
Look around You upon the field If
Gettysburg! Picture the array. the
fierce heats and agony of battle, col
umn hurled against column, battery
believing to battery Valor? Yes,
Greater n" man shall see i'm war; and
s"lt-sacrilico. and loss 10 the utter
most tn" high reCklrSSness of cX-
alt"d devotion which does not count
= he cost. We ar, Ol11p l,N tb.,., tr,.,.,