New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-30
THAT These Dead Shall Not Have
Died in Vain"

Il is over half a century since our last
great war Two generations have passed
onward since Appomattox. The ranks OF
veterans who march to-day are as thin and
torn as the ragged flags heading their line
Lads and striplngs these were in the
armies that fell in windows on Antietam's
cornfeld. that were swallowed up I'M
counted in the Wilderness, that died yet
held and held for all time the stone wall on
Cemetery Ridge.
Each generation must learn its own
lesson by its own experience. We OF
new century had not exactly forgotten
what our fathers and grandfathers did in
the eos. But their simple problem and
their simple answer to it had become OBJ
scured. We were concerned in a new
world Of many inventions and swift
change. Our freshly won wisdom was so
vast that it seemed to many waste Of
time TO look backward for enlightenment.
A generation that had conquered the sea,
the earth. space, light, the air even, could
easily forget that man remained uncon-
ouered and that the fight for human lib
erty was a war that never ended.
Our condition when the Great War broke
out in Europe has been variously char
acterized. We had grown soft from too
much peace, lazy from too much luxury.
fabbv from too little trial and failure.
Where the words fit let them be applied.
That the nation, as a whole, became either
soft or lazy or fabby we do not for a
moment believe. The West, where soft
ness was supposed to congregate, has
shown by its enlistments that courage
leads there exactly as it did in the COS.
Not even the discouraging inertia at
Washington-inertia that makes our
America stand more like the shambling
giant OF the circus than the Titan we feel
ourselves to be-could halt the heart and
will of the nation. Undirected, unco-
ordinated, awkward, confused our activi-
ties still may be; it is jostling mob that
answers. But-we come.
We have our new formulas for the
present war. They have been stated elo-
quenty and at length. But the instinct
! that sends nation to battle is deeper than
words or eloquence. 1t is as inarticulate as
the call of the drum-and those who fight
or send their sons to fight can say whether
there is great difference between the drum
beat of rs and 81 and II. The noblest
of all Memorial Days was not 30th Of
May, but that 10Th of November, 1868,
when President Lincoln journeyed TO the
Gettysburg battlefield to dedicate its hills
still SCARED with graves. He uttered there
the few words that are our true national
hymn. words, we submit, that speak with
startling aptness to-day. They were, he
said, engaged in a great war, testing
whether that nation or any nation so con-
ceived and so dedicated can long endure. y
And he ended with the resolve: That
these dead shall not have died in vain
that this nation, under God shall have a
new birth of freedom, and that govern
ment of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth
II was in the hearts of the first Ameri-
cans, of "fourscore and seven years ago"
that Lincoln found this spirit of 81; and
it is, we may give ourselves to hope, the
selfsame fame Of liberty that burns in
our hearts to-day. A new peril to the peo-
pies government has arisen in the world.
Ours is the privilege to oppose ii. We are
honoring with barred heads to-day the
glorious company who fought and died for
liberty; and what American will ask bet
ter fate than TO fight that fight anew?