Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1916 — MEMORIAL DAY [ARTICLE]

MEMORIAL DAY

IT IS quite interesting to compare the photographs of the young volunteers who went out in the sixties with those taken today. One can scarcely recognize in those ill-fit-ting uniforms the men who today will commemorate the deeds of valor of the comrades gone before. as royal a set of young fellows as ever took up musket or handled a sword in defense of civil liberty. They still wear the blue, some of them, and they look their best on Decoration day. There is a badge on each byeast. The hand has grown feeble, the hair is turned gray, and with irregular footsteps they follow the band and the children of the schools, all bearing bouquets to the graves of their fallen comrades.

It is not the procession that marched down to the battle front away back yonder in the long ago that we behold today. It is but a remnant of that mighty host; but for a half century they have been keeping the folds of the old flag bright and the graves of their unforgotten hefoes green, and reminding a new generation of the horrors of war. of the beauty of otism and the fidelity of the old guard for each other. It is the epic of the unforgotten years. It is the incarnation of memories that have grown holier as the years have sped away. They have dropped out, one by one, from the blue files ot the living with the badge upon their breasts and liberty's emblem around them. Beneath the green mounds, and the fragrance of immortelles they await the roll call on the eternal morning. If in the bright afterwhile, some chronicler, with more than mortal prescience. were to write the achievements of the men who today occupy the place of honor in our ceremonials, there would be found written something like this: The greatest service the men of ’6l-65 rendered to, their country was not merely the preservation of an undivided flag, but in holding before our nation from year to year in this beautiful service the glorious ideals of civil liberty, and the awful cost at which these national virtues are maintained. It was one thing to preserve the Union, it has been another thing to keep before the oncoming generations the principles which have been embedded in shot and shell. This has been done by the Grand Army of the Republic in a Way to call forth the admiration of humanity. If there Is one thing more than another that has burned the love of freedom Into the boul of our young manhood and womanhood, it has been the Mayday tramp, tramp of the veterans, bearing their memorial wreaths to the

graves of their patriots dead. It Is sight calculated to cause even the most stolid to admire the principles which, have been embalmed in sacrificial blood. The tears of the blue and the gray have healed the wounds of fratricidal strife. There are monuments to each, that are sacred and holy. Today thte same stars look down upon each, the same flag is beloved by all, a united country is our mutual heritage. There is no hatred in the veteran’s handgrip nor enmity in his salutation. God. has made his blossoms to bloom over unmarked graves and has filled th© old trenches with lilies of the valley. Wild vines clamber over ruined ramparts and the cannon of war, beaten, by the storms of half a hundred years, stand as mute mementoes in parks and city squares, memorials of the valiant years, which, if it please God, will never come again.