Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 124, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1912 — NAITONS DAY of REVERENCE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NAITONS DAY of REVERENCE

AYS there are that stand heroic upon the calendar for all time. These are days honored in common by races and nations. They are days that enlist the particular respect of nations because they perpetuate the memories of persons famed for what they have done in

one or another walk of life. The tendency of mankind is to seek to have the fame of the -great ones equal in duration with their bestowing upon their fellow-men. There is one day for the American people that stands alone in solitary grandeur, separated * in the high flights of glory that encircle it, isolated, yet majestic, in the pathos which will ever attend its oelebration. That day is Decoration day. In these times, when the peacepipes are as soundful as the pipes of Pan, when the bugle is becoming hoarse, while the herald's trumpet announces general arbitration treaties to the ends of the earth, in these times, when the progress of mankind appears to be Mt toward the fulfillment of the far-off prophecy that swords shall be turned into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, it is well tcTlay emphasis upon the day that has the most distinctive glory of any peculiarly American holiday. The glory of Decoration day Is that it holds in national hallowing the mighty deeds of brave men. Their deeds will be immortal, who fought not because they had spleen toward their brethren —now united in the bonds of a common home, endeavor and destiny—but because they saw a shattered nation wrecked upon the shoals of sectionalism! They will be immortal because the tendency of mankind is to have the fame of the doers of great deeds conterminous Vfith the benefits conferred. The benwill be everlasting and augmenting, so that Decoration day, far from having diminished glory when the last of the soldiers of the nation shall have passed away, will have §Yen more honor paid it. The growth of the nation, the working out of its destiny, the recession of sectionalism, the magnifying of the incidents of na-tional-progress and national purpose —these are all factors in the march of progress that shall forever make hallowed the day sanctified by memories of the blood of the nation’s defenders. Sad, indeed, the occasion for fratricidal strife, but the working out of the national issues from the glorious battlefields of the nation in’ its great domestic contest make even the pathos of the warfare eloquent with brotherhood, unity and.a common devotion. _ v jc The time may oome when war will be regarded as barbarism outright, when the closeness of the nations and the identical interests of the powers ■will be such as to obviate warfare, when the tribunals will exist for the support of all international causes without recourse to *war. But the time can never come when the laurels of the warrior will be dimmed. No

iconoclast will ever arise who will seek to tear down the monuments of the men who molded the world’s destinies, using the blood of the battle-’ field as the cement for their constructive efforts. Indeed, it is conceivable that the day may come when there can no more be opportunity for military distinction, but this very fact will Increase the glory of the ages of heroism. Then the nation will look back to the deeds of the heroes who Saved the Union, and they will be honored as living in an age, the majesty of which cannot be underrated by any change of ideas as to the utility of warfare. Hence the tribute -paid the dead heroes o£ the nation’s strife will be a less tribute than any to follow, for every year the meed of praise and the warmth of encomium will be increased, as the of the past lends addl* tional enchantment to the theme. The time will come when every part of the nation, without disparagement to the men who fought on the other side, will unite in acclaiming the men who preserved the nation and made it the mighty leader in all movements for the peace and'honor of mankind. War may be all that it has been painted and its horrors cannot be too gravely set forth, hut there is a profound religion in the warfare that reconstructs a nation, that re-establishes justice, that sets men free and liberates the intellect from shackles that fetter progressive thought and prohibit the full expression of progressive conduct. The south is blossoming today in its national fervor and industries teem throughout its domain. ‘ The north Js , clasping hands with all other sections in the movement of the American brotherhood toward the highest pinnacle of lofty ethics and serviceable achievement. The organ roll of American sentiment is heard with deep and resonant melody. All the nations of the earth are learning from the united American state, ths great federated people of the American republic, the righteousness that exalte th a nation. American statesmen, American educators, American theologians—all have done mightily toward giving this country its position of prestige in the realm of world affairs, its reputation for probity and honesty. But the men who gave their lives for the nation made all this possible. They exalted an ideal that has placed upon the American people the destiny of necessity to support every oppressed people and to uplift the standard of freedom and moral right. Out from the furnace of the war came the gold of American ideals, out from the blood and strife came the type of American statesmanship and the type of American sentiment that have caused the republic to be looked up to by the people of Europe and Ada as the moral mentor and the efficient ideal for alt of them. The vo/k of the mien who are honored upon Decoration day fa not concluded, will sever be. Their souls move majestically onward with the movement of the race, of the age, of the universe. Some day. there will

be a general roll call, when those who have deserved well of mankind will pass in the review of the eternal ages, and the men who did the deeds honored upon Decoration day will not miss the tribute of the wider effects of their mission to preserve the American political tie unbroken. United, glorious and peaceful, with undimmed vision and with unshaken faith ini their primary principles, the American people are one in heart and one in spirit in their purpose to have the illustrious ideals of the nation made increasingly glorious for the blessing of mankind. It is easy enough after a war has been fought to prove the uselessness of it. It has often been shown how the difference between the north and the south might have been adjusted with such a terrible waste of life and treasure. Grant that within the devices of political expediency these preventions were possible, the fact still remains that the wars were fought, that great moral faults were purged, and the God of battles enforced his ancient law of eye for eye and drop of blood for drop of blood. Children are always bearing the faults of their fathers, and the men and women of ’6O to *65 poured out of their own veins and out oY their own souls an equal portion of blood' and misery that their fathers drew from the veins of an enslaved race. No moral debts, long remain unpaid. - What if the purging was drastic and the throes suffered Ty tSe warring elements brought it staggering to its knees, was not. the cleansing complete? The nation stands today the stronger and the sweeter for that conflict. For it was not merely the quarrelsome distemper of war that afflicted the people, hut a score of diseases; not human slavery alone, but factional jealousy, greed, selfishness, state misgovernment and federal abuses. How vastly these have been eliminated can be appreciated only by a study of the injustices of that ante-helium period. The nation in that memorable struggle was expected by cynical observers In Europe to crumble and fall. But these observers failed utterly to grasp the significance of the struggle that was being fought for national purity and national unity. Instead of perceiving a giant rending himself, as they thought, they were watching a giant wrestling with the evil that was within him. As the day of that conflict ever recedes, and the din grows less strident to the ear, its better significance makes itself felt. The broad page of history teaches a lesson that participation in the actual war itself might not have taught. If any soldiers stood In the trenches unmindful of the significance of the struggles in which be was a part, he is not unmindful now as he measures his step (o the beat of the muffled drum today. For time has shown all wherein lay the universal meaning of that conflict The nation was being bled of its distempers, even through his veins. And it rose np, weakened and saddened, but with the courage of the victor and the resolution of the chastened.