by the stars of night, the eternal summit lifts its snowy crest, crowned with the infinite serenity of peace. 66 And God said let there be light, and there was light.” Light on the ocean, light on the land. 66 66 And God said—let there be light, and there was light." Light from the cross of calvary, light from the souls of men. And God said let there be light, and there was light.' Light from the emancipation proclamation, light on the honor of the nation, light on the Constitution of the United States, light on the black faces of patient bondmen, light on every standard of freedom throughout the world. From the hour in which the cause of the Union became the cause of liberty, from the hour in which the flag of the Republic became the flag of humanity, from the hour in which the stars and stripes no longer floated over a slave; yea, from the sacred hour of the nation's new birth, that dear old banner never faded from the sky, and the brave boys who bore it never wavered in their onward march to victory. After a quarter of a century of peace and prosperity, all children of our common country kneel at the altar of a reunited faith. The blue and gray lie in eternal slumber side by side. Heroes all, they fell face to face, brother against brother, to expiate a nation's sin. The lonely firesides and the unknown graves, the memory of the loved, the yearning for the lost, the desolated altars and the broken hopes, are past recall. The wings of our weak protest beat in vain against the iron doors of fate. But through the mingled tears that fall alike upon the honored dead of both, the North and South turn hopeful eyes to that new future of prosperity and power, possible only in the shelter of the dear old flag. To the conquerors and the conquered, to the white man and the black, to the master and the slave, Abraham Lincoln was God's providence. L THE TRUE WAR SPIRIT By GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR, Lawyer; Member of Congress from Massachusetts, 1868-76; Senator, 1877-. Born in Concord, Mass., 1826. From a speech delivered in the United States Senate, April 14, 1898. Mr. President, I regret, speaking for myself, that any Senator feels it to be his duty to indulge in harsh criticism of the President of the United States. Do gentlemen, when they criticise this brave American soldier's love of peace— and every brave American soldier from the beginning of our history has been a lover of peace-reflect what war is and who it is that suffers by it? The persons who suffer by modern wars are not the men who provoke them or the men who are guilty of the causes to which they owe their origin. Every modern war is an additional burden on the poor man, the laboring man, the plain man, while the glory is reaped by a few officers and the profits by a few stock jobbers and contractors. It is not even the guilty Spaniard who is primarily to suffer by the terrible punishment which we are expected to inflict upon Spain. It is not the Weylers or even the Sagastas or the Blancos. It is the poor peasant whose first-born is to be drafted into the military service, never to return or to return a wreck. It is the widow whose stay is to be taken from her, who is to get no share of the glory, but only the full of the suffering. This war, if it be to come upon us, is to add a new and terrible burden, even if it be confined within the limits to which we hope it may be confined, to the already overburdened and suffering peasantry of Europe. The results of a great war are due to the policy of the king and the noble and the tyrant, not the policy of the people. Every child upon the continent of Europe to-day was born with a mortgage of three hundred and fifty dollars about his little neck and an armed soldier riding upon his back. So while I agree, as will be seen before I finish, that war may be necessary, and it may be necessary now, yet I cannot myself agree with my honorable friend, the Senator from Mississippi, when he said so lightly that he thought it was a good plan to have a war once in a while, that it prevented the dry rot of prolonged peace. A nation is made up of human homes, and the glory of a nation and the value of its possessions are in its humble homes. I do not agree with the Senator who thinks that a home is made better by the loss of its boys or the crippling for life of its head. tent. I do not like what follows war. I do not like the piling up in this country of thousands upon thousands of millions more of our public debt. I have not read history like the Senator from Mississippi in a way to lead me to think that war is ever a purifying process. The seasons which follow great wars, either in this country or elsewhere, are times of debts and jobs and disordered currency and popular disconThe periods that have followed the great wars are the worst periods in history. If we enter upon this war, we are to subject our ships to many disasters like that of the Maine and our soldiers to pestilence and yellow fever. The destruction in the soldier who survives of the capacity for the rest of his life for the works of peace is a not insignificant result even of the best and most necessary war, to say nothing of the increase of the debt and of the pension list. Mr. President, I expect to vote for the House resolutions, unless I should have an opportunity to vote for the resolution of the honorable Senator from Colorado. That leads to war. There is no doubt about it. It will lead to the most honorable single war in all history, unless we except wars entered upon by brave people in the assertion of their own liberty. It leads to war. It is a war in which there does not enter the slightest thought or desire of foreign conquest or of national gain or advantage. I have not heard throughout this whole discussion in Senate or House an expression of a desire to subjugate and There occupy Cuba for the purposes of our own country. is nothing of that kind suggested. It is disclaimed by the President, disclaimed by the committee, disclaimed by everybody, so far as I am aware. It is entered into for the single and sole reason that three or four hundred thousand human beings, within ninety miles of our shores, have been subjected to the policy intended, or at any rate having the effect, deliberately to starve them to death-men, women, and children, old men, mothers, and infants. If there have been any hasty or unwise utterances of impatience in such a cause as that, and I think there have been, they have been honest, brave, humane utterances. But when I enter upon this war, I want to enter upon it with a united American people-President and Senate and House, and Navy and Army, and Democrat and Republican, all joining hands and all marching one way. I want to enter upon it with the sanction of international law, with the sympathy of all humane and liberty-loving nations, with the approval of our own consciences, and with a certainty of the applauding judgment of history. I confess I do not like to think of the genius of America angry, snarling, shouting, screaming, kicking, clawing with her nails. I like rather to think of her in her august and serene beauty, inspired by a sentiment even toward her enemies not of hate, but of love, perhaps a little pale in the cheek and a dangerous light in her eye, but with a smile on her lips, as sure, determined, unerring, invincible as was the Archangel Michael when he struck down and trampled upon the Demon of Darkness. CHARLES SUMNER By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, Author, Orator, Lecturer, Editor. Born in Providence, R. I., 1824; died at Staten Island, N. Y., 1892. From a eulogy on Charles Sumner delivered before the Legislature of Massachusetts in Music Hall, Boston, June 9, 1874. Taken, by permission of the publishers, from "Orations and Addresses of George William Curtis." Copyright 1894, by Harper & Brothers, New York. The anti-slavery contest had closed many a door and many a heart against Charles Sumner. It had exposed him to the sneer, the hate, the ridicule, of opposition; it had threatened his life and assailed his person. But the great issue was clearly drawn; his whole being was stirred to its depths; he was in the bloom of youth, the pride of strength; history and reason, the human heart and the human conscience, were his immortal allies; and around him were the vast, increasing hosts of liberty; the men whose counsels he approved; the friends of his heart; the multitude that thought him only too eager for unquestionable right; the prayer of free men and women, sustaining, inspiring, blessing him. But here was another scene, a far fiercer trial. His old companions in the Free-soil days, the great abolition leaders, most of his warmest personal friends, the great body of the party whom his words had inspired, looked at him with sorrowful surprise. Ah! no one who did not know that proud and tender heart, trusting, simple, almost credulous as that of a boy, could know how sore the trial was. He stood, among his oldest friends, virtually alone; with inexpressible pain they parted, each to his own duty. Are you willing, I said to him one day, when he had passionately implored me to agree with him—and I should have been unworthy his friendship had I been silent—“is Charles Sumner willing at this time, and in the circumstances of to-day, to intrust the colored race in this country with all their rights, their liberty newly won and yet flexile and nascent, to a party, however fair it professes, which com 66 |