The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1913-07-05
TALKS OF PEACE
ON FIELD OF WAR
Wilson Tells Gettysburg He
rOeS Lesson OF Conflict.
NATION CANNOT LIE STILL

War Fitted Us for Action, and Action
Never ceases-The People Now
Make Up Great Army; Our Consti.
tutions Are Their Articles of En-.
lstment.
Gettysburg, Pa, July 5.-The presi.
dent Of the United States in persorI
honored the veterans of the Civil war.
incidentally for the first time al
Southern born executive mingled with
the warriors of half a century ago on
the Gettysburg battlefield and talked
to them Of what the conflict in which
they participated meant to the men
and women of the present generation.
1t was the climax of an eventful
week and marked the end of what
will probably be the last great reunion
Of the survivors of the war between
the states.
The president made the trip from
Washington to this town by train. As
he stepped from his car he was
greeted by a presidential salute from
the battlefield and mingled cheers
and rebel yells from the blue and
gray garbed veterans who had
thronged to the station to greet him.
An escort of cavalry was waiting
to convey the car with the president
M A., q, ofpl
the Emmettsburg road on the battle
field, where the formal exercises took
place. President Wilson's address
was in part as follows:
Old Wounds Are Healed.
Friends and Fellow Citizens-I
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 struggle.
Upon these famous fields and hillsides
their comrades died about them. In
their presence 1t were an imperti-
nence to discourse upon how the bat
tie went, how 1t ended, what 1t signi-
fed. But fifty years have gone by
since then, and / crave the privilege
OF speaking to you for few minutes
of what those fifty years have meant.
What have they meant? They have
meant peace and union and vigor and
the maturity and might of great ma
tion. 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 forgotten, except
that we shall not forget the splendid
valor, the manly devotion, 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 unquestioned, how benign and
majestic, as state after state has been
added to this, our great family Of free
menl How handsome the vigor, the
maturity, the might, Of the great ma.
tion we love with undivided hearts
how full of large and confident prom
ise that a life will be wrought out
that will crown its strength with gra-
cious justice and with happy welfare
that will touch all alike with deep
contentment! We are debtors to those
fifty crowded years. They have made
us heirs to a mighty heritage.
Died That People Might Live.
"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.
It is upon us in full tide.
Have affairs paused? Does the ma
ton stand still? Is what the fifty
years have wrought since those days
OF battle finished, rounded out and
completed? Here is q great people,
great with every force that has ever
beaten In the lifeblood of mankind.
And It is secure. There is no one
within its borders, there is no power
among the nations of the earth, to
make 1t 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 judg-
ment 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 every
thing except the satisfaction that its
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
RArder things to do than we have