The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1921-05-29
DECORATION DAY
"On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,


Their silent tents are spread
While Glory guards with noseess round
The bivouac of the dead" @
Years ago the above quoted lines were writ
ten, shortly after the close of the nternecine
strife which rent this nation from center
to circumference, turned the hand of father
against son, of brother against brother and
for time threatened the most sacred of
Americas institutions.
They were written at time wounds were
yet sore at time partisan passions blazed,
at time the people from the two great sec
tiOns of the United States, the North and the
South, found it impossible to entwine emblems of
loving remembrance over the lowly graves with
"love and tears for the blue; tears and love
for the grey" They were written by great
soldier in the Christian army so worded that
all who read might know Fame guarded the
bivouac of the Union and the Confederate dead.
Years ago May 80 was designated as Dec
oration Day, and so recognized throughout the
North, but met with cold acclaim from the
survivors of those who died in defense of the
traditions held holy by the sons of the South.
Passing time, however, did much to heal
the wounds to soften the bitter feelings and
bring the sons of the men who fought with
Grant, and marched with Sherman to the
sea, into an harmonious accord with the men
who cast their lot with the destines of Jack
son. Morgan, Hood, the men who stacked arms
with Lee, at Appomattox, and saluted, for the
last time, the Stars and Bars which had floated
over the fair southland in hope of victory, in
the beginning, but which, in the end was
furled, forever, in the agony of defeat.
And gradually the bitter partisan hatred of
the South for the victorious ones from the
North gave way, and the coming of new
era was marked by the recognition, by them
OF Decoration Day, the day upon which they
entwined the garlands of love about the grave
of the Confederate soldier, interviewer with
those which marked the grave of the Unionst
Gradually, with the endless passing of re-
lentess Time, the line of demarkation between
the people of the South and those of tbe North
became less marked-drew nearer to oblitera-
ton.
But while the antipathy of the people
of one section of the Union for those of the
other grew less marked, being born, as it was
in hatred, christened with the hearts blood
of hundreds Of thousands of the young man.
hood of America, it remained for blood to wash
away its last remaining mark, to cleanse this
people of fatricidal hate, even as the blood
of the Redeemer, as we are told from the pulpit,
washed away the sins of man and cleansed
the mortal soul of blemshing dshonors
When the United States entered the war
against Germany, and the government called
upon its young men to take up arms and fight
for the nations honor, the boys of the South
and the boys of the North foregathered and
swore, as one, to defend the Stars and Stripes
Of a united people.
And now, today, as one people, as people
who are at last reunited and welded together,
who are bonded with the unbreakable tendons
Of fraternal love, we gather, not from - q
North, not from the South. but from all points
Of the compass to strew emblems of affection
upon the graves wherein sleep those heroes
who belong to the ages.
May 30 is Decoration Day all over the
United States. 1t is the day upon which we
pause TO breathe sigh Of fondness for the
men who wore the blue, a sigh of affection for
the men who wore the grey, to drop tear
upon the graves wherein have mouldered to
dust the men who fought beneath the Cross of
ST. George intermingled with the dust of those