Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1915-06-25
MEMORIAL ADDRESS
COL. PHI. DALE'S ADDRESS DELIV.
Erred AT LYNDONVILLE
Concluded


today is the highest yet developed
by advancing civilization. In con-
trast to that which Bernhardt has
written book to describe, it is hy-
perion to a satyr. What is this
American conception of heroism as
applied to this weltering..war across
the sea? To US there are many
heroes there. The little boy fasten-
ing an old bootleg on one stake in a
great field bristling with others tina t
he might not forget where they
buried his father, was a hero at the
grave of another. Women seeking
in the ashes some token of time
when love found shelter and virtue
was sacred are. heroes. Men there
are who possess the qualities which
make them heroic, impelled to their
various conceptions of duty by in
heritance from Wellington, Napo-
leon and Bismarck. In contrast to
these there are towards and villains
and traitors, men who smash the
windows created by lost art in the
cathedrals of God, who slay with
mongrel madness and defile with
polluted passion. Thinking of it all
we ask what causes were long form
ing toward these results and is some
body responsible for the ghastly cul-
mination? In that realm where hu-
man events take form, their slow
development is difficult to trace. In
that conflict of opinions and asser-
tions of the few men with whom
rest the destinies of peoples in times
of crises, it is difficult to fix on any
one the responsibility; but some ab-
stract facts there are which stand
out clear of all controversy and
which we do we'll to contemplate.
They lead us out of the dependency
into which civilization for a time
turning back has plunged us and
they give assurance of that force
which overcome for a time is yet
unconquerable and again will carry
civilization onward and upward. In
our considerations we find it a fact
of most hopeful promise that all the
world acknowledges the horror of
the present conflict and realizes that
the most extensive and mighty su-
premacy that could come to any one
of the warning empires will be in
significant at the appalling sacrifice.
That intangible, supernal aggregate
of human judgment, the last court
of the world, has already decreed
4 that all the intellectual culture which
the arrogant writers in a great en-
pire have proclaimed it's right and
duty to perpetuate by the sword has
already lost its influence and by the
very name it bears will be abhorrent
to generations yet to be. Whether
one empire jealous of the industrial
development of another and fearing
its competition, while yet proclaim
ing it's desire for peace, did by any
slightest act of commission or
commission permit this war to be, or
whether that other empire, always
the deterrent factor in the World s
Peace Conferences, avowing its de-
vine right to take up arms against
the world, did by plan and purpose
create this war, the fact is clear that
neither dare face the judgment of
civilization by concession of the
slightest act that might have made
it possible. Nay, but both are send
ing out tons of literature to con-
vince the world that each did all
within it's power to prevent it. AL
ready the irrevocable degree of hui
man judgment has made it plain
that no coward or villain or traitor
who may stink among the ranks of
heroes in this war is, with all his in
| fernal instincts and mongrel mad
ness and polluted passion, so low in
the scale of ignominy as that man
who somewhere from his place as
throned monarch or position of di-
plomatic power, might have checked
in its inception this horrible war and
yet permitted it to be. Moreover, of
all the heroes in this war, whether
ruler or general or statesman OF
common soldier in the ranks, not one
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