The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1918-05-31
THIS MEMORIAL DAY
NATIONS TRIBUTE TO ITS HERO.
&c DEAD HAS A NEW AND
GREATER SIGNIFICANCE

GREATER SIGNIFICANCE
1t is fifty years now that the Amer
ican people have every year laid aside
their tools for a day to remember
their noble dead
This year they again lay aside their
tools. This year they again gather
roses and lilacs and apple blossoms
and cherry blossoms and wander out
to the cemeteries to decorate those
old but never forgotten graves. This
year they decorate them with appre-
hensive hearts.
This year, as in other years, they re.
fresh in their memory the heroic
deeds and sacrifices of their fathers;
but they do something besides this.
Recalling those deeds and those sac
rifices in the bright light of new
heroism and the shadow of new sac-
rifice, they dedicate themselves, their
hands, their minds, and their spirits,
to the new struggle on which their
country is embarked.
They remember American men who
died fighting on old battlefelds, but
they remember more vividly Ameri-
can women and children who died OH
the Lusitania.
They remember Gettysburg, and
Charlottesville, and Fredericksburg,
and Chickamauga, and the Wilderness;
but they remember more vividly what
happened in Belgium, and France, and
Serbia, and Armenia, and on the open
seas.
They remember the Lost Cause and
the Cause that was victorious. With
high hearts they remember them, and
with grateful hearts they remember
the men who fought and died defend
ing them, and the men who fought and
lived and were great enough, for the
sake of a united nation, at last to for
give and forget. They remember
these things. But more vividly they
remember that the nation which Wash
ington created and Lincoln preserved
is face to face with the most sinister
foe that has yet threatened it's iber-
ty They remember that this foe,
with sly and insidious cunning, sought
to confuse, corrupt, and hamstring
the energy and moral will of the
American people even while he sank
their ships and slaughtered their fel-
|low-citizens. They remember that by
the force of his arms this foe has
beaten down great Russia, subjected
Serbia, Roumania, Belgium, northern
Italy and northern France.
They remember liberty and they re.
member that where the foe has trod,
liberty has died.
In the midst of a great war. the
American people give day to their
heroic dead. They honor them in
speeches and parades. They honor
them with flowers and music They
are doing them no more than justice
when they so honor them.
But they honor them best If with
firm will and fearless heart they re-
solve that humanity's foe shall die;
but that, by the strength, the courage,
the endurance, the spirit of devotion
and sacrifice not only of the men in
khaki or in blue in France and Fland.st
ers and on the sea, but of the fathers
and mothers and wives, the sisters,
the sweethearts, the brothers, who
work and wait at home in the Great
Republic of the West, Democracy
shall triumph, Right shall triumph,
and Liberty shall live, bringing to
the world peace that shall endure,
and to men and women everywhere a
happiness that shall have foundations.
By Herman 'Hagedorn, OF the Wig.
ilantes.
~ '.. wat .. II. &}r|