Show THE MONUMENT That General Grant was a great soldier few will deny j likewise few will deny that to him perhaps more than to anyone any-one else was owing the happy result of the war which was started to sunder the Union but which terminated by saving it and making it more strong than it was A grateful people desire to do homage to his greatness and his worth and that which now agitates them is to find a suitable outward expression People have generally come ito i-to the opinion that a grand national monument mon-ument should be erected to his memory and the monument move may be said to have become a craze Every town and city now wants a monument and almost every person has a special plan for it if all the monuments that are now contemplated contem-plated shall be erected the nation will I bankrupt itself and destroy that which General Grant did PO much to save Not I to coincide with all the wild schemes for monuments that are gotten up is to be j i looked upon almost as a traitor to the j country i certainly as a great disparager I of the work and worth of General Grant ire i-re such extremes and extravagances in il I I any way a special honor and respect to I I the memory of General Grant In fact 1 i from what we know of his simplicity of tastes and character is it not safe to presume I I pre-sume that all the talk and a good deal oft of-t is twaddle too now going on about monuments would be highly distasteful j General Grant himself were he living I Then for one moment consider the different differ-ent ideas as to what the monument should be If all these ideas could bo put into practical shape and there could boa I bo-a collection of models of them made the collection would certainly look like a mu scum of antiquities if not a museum of j curiosities Monument makers arc liable j to forget him whose memory they are to I commemorate in their great desire to i elabrate their work and crown themselves < them-selves The great home of monuments is Westminster Abbey and some of them j are absolutely hideous In America wet I we-t gi i 01 > 2 i also have some hideous monumental work Look for instance at the statue of Washington on the castside of the Capitol There he sits in the most nondescript dress in the world On his headis the English periwig and around his halfclad body is a Roman toga An artistic and fitting combination is it not Are such monuments as that to be erected erect-ed to the memory of General Grant Better never a monument than such a monument A proper and fitting monument should be and will be erected to General Grants memory but the present monument monu-ment craze is neither respectful to his memory nor creditable to the people His truest monument and the one that he most prized in his life was the heartfelt heart-felt thanks and respect of a grateful and mighty people There is a fitness of things in death even when great men die and people should never forget that The boast of heraldry the pomp of power And all that beauty all that wealth eer pave Await alike the inevitable hour The paths of glory lead but to the grave I |