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Show MEMORIAL DAY. When the people 'of the nation put aside their work one day last week to devote the time to the memory of the dead who had served in the memorable me-morable conflict between the states, they consciously did honor to the heroes of war and unconsciously did honor to the art of war. To the men who fought with the armies of the north to preserve the nation is due more than we of a later generation usually concede in the strenuous life which we follow, but the annual Memorial day must awaken in us the patriotism which the heroes felt when they answered an-swered the call after the incident at Fort Sumter or when they returned to their homes after the climax cli-max at Appomattox. The years between were filled with woe and Moodv conflict war which tore the nation to the foundation and filled with momentous momen-tous events which furnish today, forty-two years after the conflict, such history as was never known before, and which we hope and pray will never need be repeated. As the years roll on and the ranks of those brave men are thinned and decrepitude comes over those who yet remain, the annual celebration of one day I given to the memory of the dead and to the honor of the living must soften the hatred which grew up between the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray in those awful years of civil strife. In a few years all will ho gone, the hero of the southland and the hero of the north. Already the recementing of fraternal ties is all but an accomplished ac-complished fact. Ere the last of these brave men have passed from earth, the ties of affection will be so sealed that the wound shall show no scar. Nine years ago the sons of confederate and federal soldiers sol-diers marched shoulder to shoulder beneath the Stars and Stripes, under the command of men who learned the art of war in the camps of both the great American armies. And today the heroes of the Spanish-American war participate in our memorial me-morial day. and strew flowers in grateful memory of those who fought so bravely in the darkest days of civil war. Ours is, indeed, a reunited nation, and Memorial day commemorates not only the valor of brave men who fell in battle, not only the fortitude for-titude of brave women who shared the burdens of the war, but a "union of hands, a union of hearts, and the flag of our union forever." |