Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1922-06-01

The South supplied the sentiment the North the or
ganzaton This is probably the most truthful generaliza
Day
The Civil War was nearer in a sense to the people of
the South than to the North True the North
the South each the lives of 100000 But
South far in proportion to her population Old
men and boys had been mustered into the which
rendered to Grant at Appomatox
Even significant from the standpoint of senti-
ment the Civil fought the Souths soil Like
the mothers of Belgium the mothers of the South
actual witnesses to the bloody spectacle of war
No wonder the custom of setting day apart each
spring for decorating the of their heroes
spontaneously in villages, towns and cities all the
Southland, All did say? No, of fact
1t wasn't quite everywhere that day set apart and
the community whole participated in exercises
This is where the Norths part in In the North
the of Independent organizations which
had sprung up Immediately after the had
dated into one body, the Grand Army of the Republic
coming in of the impressive ceremonies which
communities in the South holding in honor of their
dead One item in the New York Tribune told how the
some of the Union men buried there
The North mustered its organized forces
observances national On May 1868, General John A.
Logan commander in chief of the G. A. r. issued General
Order No. H. which said The Both day of May, 1868
designated for the purpose of srewng with flowers
erwise decorating the graves of comrades " Years
afterwards General Logan referred to this 1.-THE
proudest act of my life AS result of this order sent
ment crysaized throughout the North for setting
aside single day in the spring OF each for paying
tribute to the soldier dead.
1t is recorded that eighty COM
munes in the North co-operated with the G. A. r. in
The following the observance became still gen.
eral School children took in exercises Programs
including parades speeches and music arranged.
In the North, in accordance with the G. A. r. order
May S0th has been the day observed from the In
the South, where the had been of natural
growth, different days different states Ala
oama Florida Georgia and Mississippi selected April &C.
the date of the surrender of the last Confederate army
South Carolina observes May 10TH the day which JEFF
ferson Davis was captured, and Tennessee, June 8.
Two changes have about in the observance of
Memorial Day in the years that have passed the
cuson of the Civil War One attested to on June
1914 when President Wilson officially accepted as a gift
from the Daughters of the Confederacy monument in
memory of the Confederate dead which had been in
the National Cemetery at Arlington where lie soldiers
of the Union Army
few days before, when Mr. Wilson spoke at the
Memorial Day exercises held in the same cemetery
said There is no other civil in the history the
stings OF which removed before the men who did
the lighting passed from the stage of life"
Attention was called to the other change which has
come about in the significance of the day by President
Harding IN his speech at the Memorial Day exercises held
at Arlington cemetery a year ago
TO me-, he said, mo thought with more
SEPARATION than this that Memorial Day become
an international calls upon the fortunate free
IN many lands and countries help in its observance
that equally to them reminder of our COM
mon troth TO civilization humanity everlasting JUS
Itiee'-American Legion Weekly