Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-02-19
Cheers for the Living,
Tears for the Dead

The following is Robert G., Inger-
soils speech at the soldiers reunion
at Indianapolis. September q. 1876:
The past rises before me like a
dream. Again we are in the great
struggle for national life. We hear
the sounds of prcparation--the music
of boisterous drums-the silver voices
of heroic bugles We see thousands
! of assemblages. and hear the appeals
of orators; we see the pale cheeks of
women, and the flushed faces Of men:
and in those assemblages we see all
the dead whose dust we have covered
with flowers! We lose sight of them
no more We are with them when
| they enlist in the great army of free
! dom. We see them part with those
! they love. Some are walking for the
| last time in quiet, moody places, with
| the maidcns they adore. We hear the
! whisperings and the sweet vows of
| eternal love as they part forever.
| Others are bending over cradles, kiss
ing babies that are asleep. Some are
receiving the blessings ,of old men.
Some are parting with mothers who
hold them and press them to their
hearts again and again, and say moth
ing. Kisses and tears, tears and kiss
es-divine minglng of agony and
love, And some are talking with
wives. and endeavoring with brave
words spoken in the old tones, to
drive from their hearts the awful fear.
We see them part We see the wife
standing in the door with the babe
in her arms-standing in the sunlight
sobbing-at the turn of the road
hand waves-she answers by hosting
high in her loving arms the child. He
is gone, and forever.
1--WE see them as they march proud
~ away under the Haunting flags,
Keeping time to the grand, wild music
of war--marching down the streets
of the great cities-throug the towns
and across the prairies--down to the
fields of glory, to do and to die for the
eternal right.
eve go with them, one and all. We
are by their side on the glory fields
in the hospitals of pain--on all the
weary marches. We stand guard with
them in the wild storm and under the
quiet stars. We are with them in
ravnes running with blood-in the
burrows of old fields. We are with
them between contendinG hosts un-
able to move, wild with thirst, the life
/
ed leaves. We see them pierced by
balls and torn with shells, in the
trenches, by forts, and in the whirl-
wind of the charge. where men be-
come iron with nerves of steel.
1--WE are with them in the prisons of
hatred and famine; but human speech
can never tell what they endure.
I'VE are at home when the news
comes that they are dead. We see the
maiden in the shadow OF her first
sorrow. We see the silvered head of
the old man bowed with the last
grief.
THE past rises before us and we
see four millions of human beings
governed by the lash--we see them
bound hand and foot--we hear the
strokes of cruel whips-we see the
hounds tracking women through
tangled swamps. We see babies sold
from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty
unspeak able! Outrage infinite!
-Four million bodies in chains
four million souls in letters, All the
sacred relations of wife, mother. faith
er and child trampled beneath the
brutal feet of might. And this was
done under our own beautiful banner
Of the free.
1.-THE past rises before us. We hear
the roar and shrek of the bursting
shell. The broken letters fall. These
heroes died. We look. Instead of
slaves we see men and women and
children. The wand of progress
touches the auction-blo the slave
pen, the whipping post, and we sec
homes and fjresides and school houses
and books, and where all was want
and crime and cruelty and free we
see the faces of the free.
THE heroes are dead. They died
for liberty-they died for us. They
are at rest. They sleep in the land.
they made free, under the flag they
rendered stainless, under the solemn
pines, the sad embracing vines. They
sleep beneath the shadows of the
clouds, careless alike of sunshine or
of storm, each in the windowless pal
ace of Rest. Earth may run red with
other wars--they are at peace. In the
midst of battle and the roar of con-
flict, they found the serenity of death.
[ have one sentiment for soldiers liv-
ing and dead Cheers for the living;
tears for the dead"