The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1932-05-27

~ ONEMBER II, I5ZZ- In Arlington GENE
terry a great throng stood with barred
= heads as a bugler blew Taps over a
new white marble tomb in which had been
placed the body Of a dead warrior.
Who was he? No one can say. For his Is
the eternal mystery.
No one knows where he was born. II may
have been among the rocky hills of Vermont
of somewhere in sunny California. During his
boyhood he may have played in the pine woods
Of Michigan or padded dug-out on some Lousi-
ana bayou. But the name of the state which
gave him birth doesn't matter after all, for
he an American.
No one knows what collar insignia he wore
"over there" He may have been a cavalryman
or an engineer. Or he may have been a dough-
boy, slogging through the mud of France, or
one of those "cannoneers'' who have hairy
ears" And then again. he may have worn the
silver wings of the aviator But the name Of
his outfit doesn't matter. For he was soldier
Ia fighting man.
No one knows where or how he died. Il may
have been in that fierce little fight at Cantigny
Or it may have been in the gloomy Businesses
of Belleau Wood somewhere on the historic
Marne that death found him in a burst of
shrapnel, a spray of machine gun fire or
bayonet thrust. But that doesn't matter, either
The thing that does count is that "he died
fighting
NO one Knows MS name. IL may nave Deen
Just plain Smith. Or it may have been Murphy,
or Macdonald or Cjarnowski, or Muller, or
Isaacs And then again it's possible that some
where on a western Indian reservation his cop
per-skinned mother looked proudly upon her
lusty frst-born and said His name shall be
Big Brave" But his name and the nationality of
his parents are not important now. His fell
1ow-Americans call him by the proudest name
that any man can bear.
war.
Since that day ten years ago when they en-
shrined his dust in marble at Arlington and his
spirit in the heart Of America, men and women
of every station in life have bowed their heads
reyerently in the presence Of his last resting
place. To 1t have come the great Of other
COUNTRYSIDE queen of European royal house,
princes, field marshals lord admirals, states
men, None has been too great to pay him hon.
age.
Orators and poets have tried in aIl-too-inade-
quate words to pay fitting tribute to his men,
DRY. But the only real tribute to him Is the I'M
voiced one in the hearts of his feIlow-Amer-
leans To them he has given Memorial day q
new meaning. For on that day their thoughts
turn TO his tomb as tie shrine upon which is
offered Americas tribute to her soldier dead.
and more especially to the Unknown Soldiers
of all her wars.
We cannot decorate their graves IN accord
ance with the Memorial day custom, for they
are scattered far and wide over the face Of
the globe. Some Of them fell before Indian bull
let and lance on the wind-swept plains Of the
Great West Some Of them died In China, in
Cuba, In the Philippines in Mexico Some Of
them went west" on the battIefelds Of France
and Belgium.
So in alien soil they keep their lonely 'bivou-
&C Of the dead" and while we cannot pay them
the same honors on Memorial day that we do to
the others who gave their lives for their coun-
Try. we can offer up to them cur tribute Of
gratitude by remembering on that day what they
did even though We do not know who they were
&C b. Western Newspassr Unaen,