It is very inspiring, my friends, to come to this that may be called the original fountain of independence and liberty in America and here drink draughts of patriotic feeling which seem to renew the very blood in one's veins. Down in Washington sometimes when the days are hot and the business presses intolerably and there are so many things to do that it does not seem possible to do anything in the way it ought to be done, it is always possible to lift one's thought above the task of the moment and, as it were, to realize that great thing of which we are all parts, the great body of American feeling and American principle. No man could do the work that has to be done in Washington if he allowed himself to be separated from that body of principle. He must make himself feel that he is a part of the people of the United States. that he is trying to think not only for them, but with them, and then he cannot feel lonely. He not only cannot feel lonely but he cannot feel afraid of anything. My dream is that as the years go on and the world knows more and more of America it will also drink at these fountains of youth and renewal; that it also will turn to America for those moral inspirations which lie at the basis of all freedom; that the world will never fear America unless it feels that it is engaged in some enterprise which is inconsistent with the rights of humanity; and that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity. What other great people has devoted itself to this exalted ideal? To what other nation in the world can all the eyes look for an instant sympathy that thrills the whole body politic when men anywhere are fighting for their rights? I do not know that there will ever be a declaration of independence and of grievances for mankind, but I believe that if any such document is ever drawn it will be drawn in the spirit of the American Declaration of Independence, and that America has lifted high the light which will shine unto all generations and guide the feet of mankind to the goal of justice and liberty and peace. § 42 ORATION BEFORE THE GRAND ARMY POSTS OF By John D. Long (Tremont Temple, Boston, May 30, 1882.) I gratefully acknowledge your courtesy, veterans and members of the Suffolk Posts of the Grand Army, in inviting me, a civilian, to speak for you this day. I should shrink from the task, however, did I not know that in this, your purpose is to honor again the Commonwealth of which I am the official representative. By recent enactment she has made the day you celebrate one of her holy days,-a day sacred to the memory of her patriot dead and to the inspiration of patriotism in her living. Henceforward she emblazons it upon the calendar of the year with the consecrated days that have come down from the Pilgrim and the Puritan, with Christmas Day and with the birthdays of Washington and American Independence. So she commits herself afresh to the eternal foundations, which the fathers laid, of piety, education, freedom, justice, law, and love of country. The time will come indeed, and speedily, when none of you shall remain to observe it, and when the last survivor, shouldering his crutch no more, shall lie down to rest with no comrade left to shed a tear or flower upon his grave. But the service you did, the sacrifice you made, the example you taught, more immortal than your crumbling dust, will forever live and illumine the world, ast in the heavens, speeding so far from us that the eye sees not the vapor that enshrouds them, the stars shine only in purer and eternal glory. I can understand that, when the war closed, the same disinterested and single loyalty, which compelled the true citizen to arms, made many a soldier shrink from even the appearance of farther display, either by joining your organization or by publicly engaging in the decoration of graves. But with the lapse of time, with the inroads on the ranks, with this statutory recognition by the Commonwealth,-a recognition not more apt in desert than in time,-Memorial Day will hereafter gather around it not only the love and tears and pride of the generations of JOHN DAVIS LONG. Born at Buckfield, Me., October 27, 1838; graduated Harvard, 1857; admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1861; elected to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1875; elected Speaker in 1876; elected Governor of Massachusetts, 1879-1880-1881; elected to Congress in 1881; Secretary of the Navy in the cabinets of McKinley and Roosevelt; died, 1915. the people, but more and more, in its inner circle of tenderness, the linking memories of every comrade so long as one survives. As the dawn ushers it in, tinged already with the exquisite flush of hastening June, and sweet with the bursting fragrance of her roses, the wheels of time will each year roll back, and, lo! John Andrew is at the State House, inspiring Massachusetts with the throbbing of his own great heart; Abraham Lincoln, wise and patient and honest and tender and true, is at the nation's helm; the North is one broad blaze; the boys in blue are marching to the front; the fife and drum are on every breeze; the very air is patriotism; Phil Sheridan, forty miles away, dashes back to turn defeat to victory; Farragut, lashed to the masthead, is steaming into Mobile harbor; Hooker is above the clouds,—ay, now indeed forever above the clouds; Sherman marches through Georgia to the sea; Grant has throttled Lee with the grip that never lets go; Richmond falls; the armies of the republic pass in that last great review at Washington; Custer's plume is there, but Kearney's saddle is empty; and, now again, our veterans come marching home to receive the welcome of a grateful people, and to stack in Doric Hall the tattered flags which Massachusetts forever hence shall wear above her heart. In memory of the dead, in honor of the living, for inspiration to our children, we gather to-day to deck the graves of our patriots with flowers, to pledge commonwealth and town and citizen to fresh recognition of the surviving soldier, and to picture yet again the romance, the reality, the glory, the sacrifice of his service. As if it were but yesterday you recall him. He had but turned twenty. The exquisite tint of youthful health was in his cheek. His pure heart shone from frank, outspeaking eyes. His fair hair clustered from beneath his cap. He had pulled a stout oar in the college race, or walked the most graceful athlete on the village green. He had just entered on the vocation of his life. The doorway of his home at this season of the year was brilliant in the dewy morn with the clambering vine and fragrant flower, as in and out he went, the beloved of mother and sisters, and the ideal of a New England youth: "In face and shoulders like a god he was; For o'er him had the goddess breathed the charm The unreckoned influences of the great discussion of human rights had insensibly molded him into a champion of freedom. He had passed no solitary and sleepless night watching the armor which he was to wear when dubbed next day with the accolade of knighthood. But over the student's lamp or at the fireside's blaze he had passed the nobler initiate of a heart and mind trained to a fine sense of justice and to a resolution equal to the sacrifice of life itself in behalf of right and duty. He knew nothing of the web and woof of politics, but he knew instinctively the needs of his country. His ideal was Philip Sidney, not Napoleon. And when the drum beat, when the first martyr's blood sprinkled the stones of Baltimore, he took his place in the ranks and went forward. You remember his ingenuous and glowing letters to his mother, written as if his pen were dipped in his very heart. How novel seemed to him the routine of service, the life of camp and march! How eager the wish to meet the enemy and strike his first blow for the good cause! What pride at the commotion that came and put its chevron on his arm or its strap upon his shoulder! How graphically he described his sensation in the first battle, the pallor that he felt creeping up his face, the thrilling along every nerve, and then the utter fearlessness when once the charge began and his blood was up! Later on, how gratefully he wrote of the days in hospital, of the opening of the box from home, of the generous distributing of delicacies that loving ones had sent, and of the never-to-be-forgotten comfort of the gentle nurse whose eyes and hands seemed to bring to his bedside the summer freshness and health of the open windows of his and her New England homestead! No Amazon was she with callous half-breast; but her whole woman's heart was devoted, as were the hearts of all her sisters at the North, to lightening the hardships and pain of war. Let her praise never fail to mingle in the soldier's tribute, or her abilities be belittled in a land to whose salvation and honor she contributed as nobly in her service as he in his. They took him prisoner. He wasted in Libby and grew gaunt and haggard with the horror of his sufferings and with pity for the greater horror of the sufferings of his comrades who fainted and died at his side. He saw his schoolmate panting with the fever of thirst, yet shot like a dog for reaching across the line to drink the stagnant water a dog would have scorned. He tunneled the earth and escaped. Hungry and weak, in terror of recapture, he followed by night the pathway of the railroad. Upon its timbers, hoar with frost, he tottered in the dark over rivers that flowed deep beneath his treacherous foothold. He slept in thickets and sank in swamps. In long and painful circuits he stole. around hamlets where he dared not ask for shelter. He saw the glitter of horsemen who pursued him. He knew the bloodhound was on his track. A faithful negro-good Samaritan-took compassion on him, bound up his wounds, and set him on his way. He reached the line; and, with his hand grasping at freedom, they caught and took him back to his captivity. He was exchanged at last; and you remember, when he came home on a short furlough, how manly and war-worn he had grown. But he soon returned to the ranks and to the welcome of his comrades. They loved him for his manliness, his high bearing, his fine sense of honor. They felt the nobility of conduct and character that breathed out from him. They recall him now alike with tears and pride. In the rifle pits around Petersburg you heard his steady voice and firm command. The bullet of the sharpshooter picked off the soldier who stood at his side and who fell dying in his arms, one last brief message whispered and faithfully sent home. It was a forlorn hope,--the charge of the brave regiment to which he belonged, reduced now by three years' long fighting to a hundred veterans, conscious that somebody had blundered yet grimly obedient to duty. Someone who saw him then fancied that he seemed that day like one who forefelt the end. But there was no flinching as he charged. He had just turned to give a cheer when the fatal ball struck him. There was a convulsion of the upward hand. His eyes, pleading and loyal, turned their last glance to the flag. His lips parted. He fell dead, and at nightfall lay with his face to the stars. Home they brought him, fairer than Adonis over whom the goddess of beauty wept. They buried him in the village churchyard under the green turf. Year by year his comrades and his kin, nearer than comrades, scatter his grave with flowers. His picture hangs on the homestead walls. Children look up at it and ask to hear his story told. It was twenty years ago; and the face is so young, so boyish and fair, that you cannot believe he was the hero of twenty battles, a veteran in the wars, a leader of men, brave, cool, commanding, great. Do you ask who he was? He was in every regiment and every company. He went out from every Massachusetts village. He sleeps in every Massachusetts burying ground. Recall romance, recite the names of heroes of legend and song, but there is none that is his peer. Can you think of him and not count the cost of such a precious life, not thrill with gratitude at such a sacrifice, not ask why such promise, such hope, such worth, should have been cut down? I know not why it is in the providence of God that through blood-not the sacrifice of rams and goats, but the blood of human hearts-the great gains of human freedom have had their impulse, unless it be that in the laws of growth, as in the laws of light, it is the red rays that are strongest and that first shine through and flash the dawn, foretelling the pure white fire of the uprising But this we do know that, search history through, and shall find no more heroic record of self-sacrifice, of courage, of the flower sun. you |