The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-05-30
| THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER"

Frank M. o'Brien's Editorial in the New York
 Herald, November II, 1921, Which Won the
 Joseph Pulitzer Prize.
 That which takes place today at the Ma tional cemetery in Arlington is a symbol, mystery and tribute. It is an entombment only in the physical sense. It is rather the enthronement of Duty and Honor. This man who died for his country is the symbol of these qualities; far more perfect symbol than any man could be whose name and deeds we know. He represents more, really, than the unidenti- fled dead, for we cannot separate spiritually from the war heroes whose names are written on their grave stones. He-this spirit whom we honor-stands for the unselfishness of all.
 This, of all monuments to the dead, is last ing and immutable. So long as men revere the finer things of life, the tomb of the nameless hero will remain shrine. Nor, with the shifts of time and mind, can there be changing of values. No historian shall rise to modify the virtues or the faults of the Unknown Soldier. He has an immunity for which Kings might pray. The years may bring erosion to the granite but not to the memory of the Unknown.
 It is common weakness of humanity to ask the questions that can never be answered in this life. Probably none to whom the drama of the Unknown Soldier has appealed has wondered who, in the sunshine of the earth, was the protagonist of today's ceremony. logger from the Penobscot? An orchardist from the Pacific coast? well drilIer from Texas? A machinist from Connecticut? A lad who left his hoe to rust among the Missouri corn? A longshoreman from Helas Kitchen? Perhaps some youth from the tobacco fields, resting again in his own Virginia. All that the army tells us of him Is that he died In battle. All that the heart tells is that some woman loved him. More than that no man shall learn. In this mystery; as in the riddle of the universe the wise wonder; but they would not know.
 What were his dreams, his ambitions? Likely he shared those common to the millions: A life of peace and honest struggle, with such small success as comes to most who try; and at the end the place on the hillside among his fathers. Today to do honor at his last resting place come the greatest soldiers of the age, famous statesmen from other continents, the President, the high judges and the legislators of his own country, and many men who, like himself, fought for the flag At his bier gather the most remarkable group that America has
 
 him is, instead of the narrow cell on the will lage hillside, one as lasting as that of Rameses and as inspiring as Napoleon's.
 It is great religious ceremony, this burial today. The exaltaton of the nameless bones would not be possible except for Belief. Where were Duty and Honor, the wellsprings of Vic tory, if mankind feared that death drew black curtain behind which lay nothing but the dark7 So all in whom the spark of hope has not died can well believe that we, to whom the Soldier is mystery, are not mystery to him. They can believe that the watchers at Arlington to- day are not merely few thousands of the living, but the countless battalions of the de- parted. Though he were dead, yet shall he lve'--there is the promise to which men hold when everything on this earth has slipped away.
 All the impressive ritual of today would be a mockery If we did not believe that, out in an infinity which astronomers cannot chart or mathematicians bound, the Unknown Soldier and all the glorious dead whom we honor in his dust are looking down upon this little spinning ball, conscious of our reverence. And when noon strikes, signal for the moment of silent prayer, few of those who stand with barred head will lack conviction that the rites at Arlington are viewed by other than nor tai eyes. Only in that spirit may we honor the Unknown Soldier and those who, like him, died for this Republic
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