The Alaska daily empire., 1915-06-11
PRESIDENT WILSON'S
 ARLINGTON SPEECH
 ON DECORATION DAY

aNHataHHHN|HN Nt fa M at Na N .HHrtN rr
 ON DECORATION DAY
 The following is the speech that was delivered by President Woodrow Wil- son at Arlington at the Memorial Day services at Arlington on the last day of last month:
 'T have not come here today to de- liver m address, but merely reverent- ly to take part In expressing the sen' timent Of this impressive day. It is' necessarily O day of reminescenses. Reminscence is not always profit able exercise. 1t generally belongs to those. appropriately to those only who have left the active stage of lie and have nothing to think about except the things that are gone and dead.
 "It does not behooye a nation to walk with It's eyes over its shoulder its business is constantly in the years that lle ahead of it and In the pres ent. that challenges it to the display of its power.
 "But there are "reminiscences which are stimulating and wholesome, and among these "reminiscences are chiefly to be ranked the recollection of days of heroism. days when great nations found it possible to express the best that was in them by the ardent exer- else Of every power that was in them.
 "That is what gives dignity to day like this. It is not day of re- grel; it is not a day Of weakening memory. lt is a day of stimulation. But, my friends. these stimulating memories we are sometimes apt to minimize because we do not see the full significance Of them.
 ''We are constantly speaking of the great war of which we think today as a war which saved the Union; and 1t did, indeed, save the Union, but it was war that did 8 great deal more than that. It created in this coun- tray what had never existed before national consciousness. It was not the salvation of the Union; it was the rebirth of Che Union It was time when America for the first time real ized It's unity and saw the vision of it's united destiny.
 Greater Dayo Ahead
 eThe solemn lesson ol these mem. ories for us Is not that we must be ready to save the Union again, for there are none among us who threaten ! it's life. but that we must see to 1t that the unity then realized. the vis- lon then seenf is exemplified in as and tho things that we do Because there Is no stimulation in any lesson unless 1t be the stimulation to duty There is no stimulation in any occas. sion of it be merely the pleasure of recollection; 1t must also be the ar- dor and courage of hope. Greater days lie before this Nation than 1t has ever seen yet and the solemn con sciousness of those who bear office in this time is that they must make their best endeavor to embody in what they do and say and are the best things in the United States.
 "It does not do to talk as much about ones self. and l do not think that it is wholesome for the United States to talk too much about itself. | ! do not want to know what you are today SO much as do want to know what you are going to do tomorrow.
 "The only test know of that is competent to determine what you are is the test of what you do. Let us ! not think of our characters; let us think of our duties and Of the actions that lie before us.
 "I always have maintained that the man who lives to cultivate his own character will result only in cultivat- ing an jntolerable pang; because his object will be himself. Character. my friends. is a by.product It is produc- ed in the great manufacture of daily duty. But duty is not easy to deter mine. Duty for nation is made up of 50 many complicated elements that no man can determine it. No group of men without wide common coun- sel can possibly determine what the duty of the day is.
 America Reborn Daily
 That is the strength of a democ- racy. because there daily arises in the great body Of a democracy the expres- sion of on untrammeled opinion that seems to fll tho air with it's 5ugges- tions of duty, and those who stand at its head of it's affairs have 1t as their bounden duty to endeavor to express in their own actions those things that seem to rise out Of the conscience and hope and purpose of the great body of the people themselves.
 "America, have said. was reborn by the struggle of the Civil War but America is reborn every day of her life by the purposes we form, the con captions we entertain, the hopes we cherish. We live in our visions. We live in the things that we see. We live and hope abounds in us as we live. in the things that we purpose. Let us so away from this place renew ed in our devotion 10 daily duty and to those ideals which keep nation young, keep 1t noble. keep 1t rich in enterprise and achievement; make it to lead the nations of the world ID those things that make for hope and