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ORATION

BY

Chas. Eugene Clark,

DECORATION DAY,

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Highland Cemetery, Covington, Ky.

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May 30, 1912.

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Presented by the Author
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ORATION

BY

Chas. Eugene Clark,
DECORATION DAY,
Highland Cemetery, Covington, Ky.
May 30, 1912. ,

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My Friends: *
We are met today in this beautiful court of peace, where rest
in hallowed ground the beloved dead, to testify pursuant to an
annual custom, the veneration of the living, for our departed
loved ones, and especially tO' honor, so far as we can by our
feeble efforts, the patriotic dead, the soldiers and sailors pf the
Union, who either died in battle for their country, or who having
survived the horrors of war, have since been called hence to
report "present" at the grand "roll-call" up yonder at the celestial
reveille. While we are especially met to honor the dead, we have happily
spared to us and their country, by the mercy of Almighty God,
living representatives of the Grand Armies of the Union, who
are gathered with us to assist, us in these solemn ceremonies.
And while they, too, testify their devotion and remembrance
for. their Comrades gone before, they are privileged to partake
and experience the honor and veneration that awaits them, when
they, too, shall have joined the great silent majority, and shall
have been laid away by loving, tender hands in God's acre.
My friends, these ceremonies are most fitting and appropriate.
For it has ever been an evidence and badge of a noble humanity
for the survivors of all enlightened nations and people to mourn
and venprate the dead, and to show especial honors to those
patriotic heroes who died in the service of their country. For
when engaged in such appropriate ceremonies the living, while
honoring the heroic dead, also dedicate themselves to the cause
of their country, and thus enlarge their patriotism and deepen
their spirit of veneration.
While it is but natural that most men are patriotic, and are
ever ready to do and dare at the call of their country in its hour of
.peril, yet often in the piping times of peace a people 'become care
less and indifferent to that finer sense of duty, the due observance
of which alone will perpetuate in its utmost purity, strength and
vigor, their government and country, and enable it to serve and
answer, in the largest measure, the purposes for which God hath
fashioned it. And so we lay aside our ordinary business affairs
on these. days of national mourning and remembrance, and gather
together at the graves of our beloved and heroic dead, and testify
by our presence there, and by the solemn ceremonies that we
hold there, our appreciation of them, of their sacrifices, and
pledge our fealty and dedicate ourselves anew to the cause for
which they died.
When we come to consider the mutations of ggvernment,
and the struggle that has ever been made by all peoples, and
especially by our own to attain that happy form of government
and measure of freedom which we, as a nation, now and have
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enjoyed for the last past- 136 years, it is especially meet and fitting
that we recount and venerate the sacrifices that have been made
by our fellow countrymen during ^he various struggles in our
national life and history.
The founders of this nation conceived high ideals of govern
ment, instituted and established to serve and bless the governed,
bringing to them the largest possible liberty consistent with law
and order, and the well being of society.
We were the natural inheritors of all the constitutional rights
of the English people when we were colonists of Great Britain,
including the rights and liberties secured to us under Magna
Charta, the Bill oi Rights, the Petition of Rights and all other
constitutional guarantees under the English Crown.
The denial of many of these sacred guarantees caused our
forefathers to rebel from the mother country and lead to the
battles of the Revolution, and to our ultimate independence.
Many patriots fell in establishing our independence.
After a few years of peace this nation was again forced to ¦
draw the sword and invoke the God of battles in the war of 1812,
and establish anew our rights as a free and independent nation,
to pursue our happiness and destiny as a member of the family
of nations, circumscribing and squaring our actions only by the
dictates of conscience and the law of nations. In the struggle,
before the triumph of our cause and the declaration of peace,
many patriots gave their lives for their country.
In the battles with the savages of the forests and prairies, and
in the Mexican war, many more names were emblazoned on the
rolls of the country's heroes, and many of these patriots lie in
unnamed and forgotten grkves and in a foreign land.
Then came our great Civil War, which for full four years
threatened our very existence as a nation, rent asunder our land
from the lakes to the gulf, and from ocean to ocean, apd in
which struggle countless battles were fought wherein more than
two millions of men were engaged, brother striving with brother,
citizen with citizen, each for the right as he saw it, wherein count
less treasure was expended and tens of thousands of homes made
desolate, while countless graves dotted the land throughout its
length and -breadth.
In this mighty struggle the high ideals for which our fore
fathers had labored, and for which our patriots had died, and
on which humanity was depending, were well nigh. lost. But
by reason of the heroic efforts and sacrifices that were made
by the government and the loyal people of the Union, and the
undying deeds and prodigies of valor that were performed in
the struggle, victory under the providence of God crowned the
Union armies, and the swords were again fashioned into reaping
hooks and other utensils of peace.
The countless heroes of this war, from both North and South
— for we fought with a valiant foe — have emblazoned the history

and adorned the annals of our common country, and their deeds
of , valor will be rehearsed and sung so long as our nation shall
endure, and though we differed in this great fratricidal strife,
both the Blue and the Gray covered themselves with imperishable
glory by their struggles and sacrifices in this greatest of all civic
wars, and their heroism has 'arched the heavens from North to
South with the rainbow of valor, circumscribing our common
country, and guaranteeing its future hope and security; patriotism
and peace. ^
In our endeavor to force the Spanish government to treat
and deal humanely with its American possessions we were com
pelled to fight the Spanish-American war, and other heroes were
added to our long and illustrious roll of patriots, and a new era
was opened in our national life, when as the result of the fortunes
of war we were compelled to take under our protecting power
and flag, foreign peoples and possessions, and bring to them our
ideals of government and civilization, and fit them for such self-
government as will enable them to take their place among the
civilized nations of the earth.
Because Shakespeare not only sorrowed, but rejoiced, he is
called greater than Dante; who only sorrowed.
And so, though our country passed through the unspeakable
horrors' of fours years of Civil War, yet this cruel war redeemed
the land from the curse of human slavery, clarified our political
atmosphere of such heresies that had attacked our national life,
and brought a better and fuller understanding between all sec
tions, and made us again a united people, one and inseparable.
The ravages of the Civil War have practically long since been
forgotten, new generations have been born in the near half cen
tury that has passed since the thunder of battle has died away
among the hills, and fields of carnage dyed with patriotic blood
have brought forth abundantly the harvests of peace to bless
and sustain a united country.
And as the fields that were once trampled with battle, satu
rated with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, have again
grown green, and show now only the blazonry and bloom of
peace, so the hearts of men once torn with strife and contention '
have been washed of all bitterness, schisms have been forgotten,
and a new nation has been born, whose only rivalry of section is
that of high endeavor and noble enterprise.
This happy condition was had only at a fearful cost.
"But then God gives no value unto men
Unmatched by meed of labor, '
And cost of worth has always been
The closest neighbor.
For from lowly woe springs lordly joy,
From humbler good, diviner.
The greater life must aye destroy,
And drink the minor." ^
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To those who fought, all honor ; their names and their achieve
ments will forever stand among the imperishable glories of their
country, and will be venerated so long as patriotism is counted
a virtue. And so to you of the Grand Army, both living and dead, a
grateful nation this day does homage — and all honor. It ac
knowledges by the memorial .services this day held for its hallowed
dead, and, by the words of laudation of you and their achieve
ments and sacrifices for the Republic, its undying attestation and
appreciation of that spirit of patriotism and consecration to duty
that led you forth to do and die for your country.
"And so fair womanhood in all its grace;
Proud manhood in its regal prime;
Sweet childhood with its angelic face,
And age with crown of silver rime.
Controlled by love's resistless sway.
And guided by her 'heavenly powers.
Goes out to celebrate the day.
And glorify the graves with flowers."
"And though. Comrades, many the changes since last you met,
Faces have brightened and tears have been wept.
And though friends have been scattered like roses in bloom.
Some at the bridal — most at the tomb."
You may rest assured that as time shall speed us on with
the efflux of years that this nation will ever hold you in kindly
remembrance. Your heroic deeds shall remain imperishable in
the hearts and traditions of your. ever grateful countrymen. By
your devotion to liberty and the cause of country and humanity
you have attested the truth of the sentiment, "that each brave
soldier has his war cry." With one it may be home; another,
country ; a third, mankind ; that each follows the same standard,
that of duty ; for each the same divine law reigns, that of self
sacrifice ; that to learn to love something more than one's self is
the secret of all that is great. To live for others is the aim of
all noble souls. And as peace hath her battles' and victories
as well as those of war, it behooves us as citizens of this Republic,
if we would prove ourselves worthy of our birthright, and would
perpetuate the blessings of a free and enlightened government
"of the people, for the people and by the people," to our posterity,
that we shall live up to our opportunity, recognize the responsi
bilities of government that go with the duty and dignity of citizen
ship, proclaim the sovereignty and majesty of the law, respect
the inalienable rights and liberties of maiikind, the work for
that peace and prosperity that shall bless our common country
with happiness and plenty, and make for its general weal, so
then shall we be able to echo that proud boast of Livy, "that we
are a nation of law as well as of men."
So, then, shall we recognize that "justice is the bread of the
nation, that it is always hungry for it, and that it is the insurance
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we have upon our lives and property, and that obedience is the
price we pay for it."
To achieve this happy condition, we must practice for our
selves and inculcate in the rising generation those grand tenets
of ethics, government and religion, that will make of us men and
women of irreproachable character and standing, pure and
patriotic, just and generous, virtuous and forgiving, and make us
fully conscious of the greatness and goodness of God, and of the
blessings which we and they may enjoy under His divine favor.
We must inculcate in our daily life and character those virtues
which admonish us to lead pure and honorable lives, which tend
to peace on earth, and good will towards men, and that develop
in both ourselves and the society around us all that is best, most
fit and perfect, that apply our talents to the creation of works
of beauty, grandeur and art, which in turn shall lift the lowly
and degraded, educate the barbarian, enthuse the learned and
sanctify the saint.
We must learn and teach the lessons of humanity, humility
and love, the virtues of patience and obedience, the dignity and
worth of labor, acquire self-command, and learn to triumph
i)ver adversity.
For then shall we acquire and inculcate those cardinal virtites
which in truth lie at the foundation of all good and 'true goverri-
meint and society. As we shall love our neighbor as ourself,
and do unto others as we would that they should do unto us,
so shall we make it possible for the establishment of the home
and family, and the prevalence of such doctrines as protect the
weak against the strong, and make for the existence of -free and
enlightened government and communities of happy and con
tented peoples.
If we will so interpret our conduct we shall ever per
petuate our country and its glorious institutions to bless maur
kind, and we, together with our posterity, shall enjoy the full
compliment of noble lives, replete with duties fulfilled, high aims,
lofty aspirations and holy pleasures.
For we shall then elevate the better above the grosser man,
and obtain those high ideals in government, in national and
domestic life, that shall redound to greatest usefulness and glory,
and lead to and make for a most worthy civilization — one that
shall long live in the annals of mankind, and prove most worthy
of emulation. While striving for God and country may we ever prove worthy
of that land and those ideals for which Washington fought and
Lincoln died.
Chas. Eugene Clark.
Decoration Day, May 30, 1913.

fRSITY LIBRARY

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