As I stand and look at you to-day and think of these spirits that have
gone from us, I know that the road is clearer for the future. These boys
have shown us the way, and it is easier to walk on it because they have
gone before and shown us how. May God grant to all of us that vision of
patriotic service which here in solemnity and grief and pride is borne
in upon our hearts and consciences!
MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS
[Delivered at the National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., May 30, 1914.]
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
I have not come here to-day with a prepared address. The committee in
charge of the exercises of the day have graciously excused me on the
grounds of public obligations from preparing such an address, but I will
not deny myself the privilege of joining with you in an expression of
gratitude and admiration for the men who perished for the sake of the
Union. They do not need our praise. They do not need that our admiration
should sustain them. There is no immortality that is safer than theirs.
We come not for their sakes but for our own, in order that we may drink
at the same springs of inspiration from which they themselves selves
drank.
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