The Belding banner-news. (Belding, Mich.) 1918-1973, 1921-05-25
Nations Ncuu
3 Ideal Of g &
I Patriotism \
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Ideal of Memorial day. Services In
memory of the dead have been held
at some fixed season of the year by all
peoples Of all times and all religious
beliefs. The growth of civilization. In
fact. could almost be traced through
the evolution of these customs alone
from the time when the ancients
brought sacrifices and libations of food
and wine to leave on the graves TO
the present observances of many coun-
tries.
Ii was after the close of the Civil
war that Memorial day, or Decoration
day as we love to call IL, first became
great American holiday. A group OF
women of a Mississippi city went out
on this day, when all the most beautl-
full flowers of the year were in bloom,
10 decorate the graves of their loved
ones who had fallen in behalf of the
Lost Cause" Many of the southern
dead lay side by side with the enemy,
but there were no enemy graves when
they had finished for all alike had
been flower-strewn. When the story of
this was spread abroad many northern
cities set apart n day month later,
when the flowers I'm the colder climates
went out and decorated all the graves
of the soldier dead i'm their cemeteries.
One by one the state legislatures
passed laws making Memorial day
april 80 in some of the southern
statcs) legal holiday. To us 1t has
been more familiar as day on which
the cemeteries are visited and the
graves, not only of the Civil war yeter-
ans. but of all the dead. decorated,
than as an occasion for great patriotic
gatherings.
Reminiscent of that first Memorial
day and the way in which Ii drew
North and South together with the
common bond of their dead between
them is an incident of how this holiday
was observed in France last year. A
great cemetery, where simple freshly
painted crosses row on row marked
the serried ranks OF American sleep
ers, had been built up near French
village. The simple folk OF this vii
lage with their own beautiful but sad
Jour DIES Morris, or annual day of pray.
ing for the souls OF their dead, had
heard that the next day was the day
on which Americans honored their
dead, so they sent a request to the
American hospital not far away, ask.
ing doctors, nurses, canteen workers,
and patients-all who could-to join
them early on the following morning
at the entrance TO the cemetery just
at the edge of the town.
The camions i'm which the Ameri.
cans would have gone were all pressed
into emergency service, and when they
finally arrived at the cemetery, it was
late afternoon. The French came to
meet them, disappointed, thinking
they had failed TO make themselves
All the children Of the
village, they said, had arisen at day
break and gone out into the fields
and gathered dew-wet flowers until
the graves Of Les Americans had been
NONtltu lIOln NlEUl. w ntU
they had waited as long as they could,
many OF them went away sobbing that
the flowers, which were already begin.
ming to droop. could not have been be.
held I'm all their freshness by those
who had known and loved the sleep
ers.
Those same graves will be flower.
strewn by LOVING hands this year, and
wet again with the tears Of the sim
pie folk who knew and loved our boys.
But the Americans whose loved ones
lie buried there will not spend the
day In idle tears For the ideals with
which we went into the World war,
and with which we saw Ii through,
have become a new ideal of national
NE. of which we should be never so
as on Memorial day. 1t has
become to Us not the day on which we
mourn those who are with us no
more, but rather the day on which we
axe thought of the great uphamlng
spirit of patriotism which led them
into the conflict. until something OF II
becomes our spirit and we catch the
vision to carry on.
II will come to us on Memorial day
hat we good Americans are facing
almost as grave as those they
faced In the first lines over there, and
we must grid ourselves up with cour-
age. We have thousand enemies
which we must face, insldlous ones.
To sit down and weep now would be
but to betray the bravery they have
shown. We must fight the little
tongues OF revolutionary flame that
are constantly dartlng up here and
there; we must combat the restless
ness, the discomfort: we must fight
the profiteers and the trade abuses;
and we have equally to fight Off old,
reactlonary tendencies toward slip
ping back into old. stagnated chan
nels. And so this year, even more
than last, Memorial day will be day
on which we will consciously pledge
anew TO the ideals to which
our boys, with all America, went to
war.
All over America there are to be