Address of WELCOME TO THE COLUMBIA POST OF CHICAGO,

AT BUFFALO, AUGUST 24, 1897

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN: The Columbia Post of Chicago has permitted me to extend to its guests a welcome to the State of New York. In discharging this agreeable task I wish first to extend to the Post my own acknowledgment of its favor and to make at least some imperfect expression of my pleasure at meeting its members within this State. To all its distinguished guests I am glad to offer the assurance that their presence here will be among the gratefully remembered events in the history of the city and the State. To the soldier there is always welcome wherever the recollection of heroic deeds survives, and as the time grows longer since the turmoil and struggle of war, the magnitude of the soldier's service grows more clear and the people's gratitude more profound. To President McKinley I have already extended welcome on more than one occasion, but I extend it again with growing satisfaction, for every meeting has increased my regard and every welcome has grown more sincere.

REMARKS AT THE G. A. R. CAMP-FIRE AT BUFFALO, AUGUST 24, 1897

FELLOW CITIZENS AND MEMBERS OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC: Meetings like this must revive in your remembrance scenes which the present generation will never understand. The sympathy and admiration of the world.

are with you, but sympathy can never show to us what experience has shown to you. The struggles, privations, sufferings and dangers always present to these things there is a force and vividness which these occasions must recall. No one but the sailor remembers the terrors of shipwreck, and no sympathy is so keen as his for those who went down in the storm. No one but the soldier remembers the hopeless privations of war or knows so well the pathos of an unrecorded burial. But if we cannot fully understand we can always feel, and even to you, old soldiers, we shall not yield in praises for the dead and in honor and affection for the living.

Remarks at RECEPTION TO HIM BY G. A. R., DEPARTMENT OF N. Y., AT BUFFALO, THURSDAY EVENING, AUG. 24, 1897 GENTLEMEN OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, DEPARTMENT OF NEW YORK: Many years ago you demonstrated to your countrymen your bravery and power in time of war. You have since that eventful period impressed yourselves upon all the varying interests of civil life, and you are now binding closer together the faltering remnants of your beloved army, by the touching hospitality which in your own State you have extended to your veteran companions. I hope these reunions will never cease as long as gray-haired soldiers live with strength enough to come together and revive in each other's fading memory their deeds of glory and of sacrifice. The declining years of human life too often hold but little to

encourage and sustain. Departing strength will always mean increasing sorrow, and the last years of these quiet, unpretending heroes should be brightened by the knowledge frequently conveyed, that they are still held in the people's warm and tender recollection.

I never look upon an aged soldier that there do not arise in me thoughts that cannot find expression. His uniform so old, discolored, faded, and yet so proudly worn, have to me a meaning and a pathos that no other sight suggests. Perhaps my feelings are not thoughts, but only those emotions deep and lasting, which sweep across the mind and heart in the serious contemplation of great deeds.

I thank you for your words of kindness addressed through your commander to me, and I ask you to accept in reply my assurance that I, in common with every loyal citizen of every State, acknowledge my respect for the soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic.

ADDRESS BEFORE THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC AT

BUFFALO, AUGUST 25, 1897

MR. PRESIDENT, MEMBERS OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC AND FELLOW CITIZENS: The struggle of the human race should be to reach that plane in civilization where the horrors of the world will not include the savage crime of war. We have not reached it yet, but let us hope the prayers of all the generations that have passed will find complete fulfillment in the future. Perhaps the genius of inven

If war

tion may discover implements of war so powerful and fatal that men dare not engage in armed contention." meant almost certain death to those who entered it, the Christian's zeal, the statesman's skill and the strong desire of all mankind to live, might, joined together, uphold the cause of peace. No other Union can maintain a long continued National repose, for the rivalries of men will overstep the bounds of prudence and integrity, and ambition halts before no enemy except the fear of death.

It has many times transpired in the uncertain progress of the world that the crisis of a Nation has been decided by its soldiers, and the value of that decision has depended upon the character of the victorious soldier and his power to improve and command himself; for after all is said of the splendor and fascination of war its only glory lies in the cause for which it was maintained and in the hope established by it of a broader civilization and a profounder peace.

Fortunate beyond any time or people has been the American people in the character of its soldiers, and more fortunate still has been the American soldier in the marvelous achievements he has wrought.

The reward to his country appears in the increasing strength of a re-united people, and in every household in the land in the enlarged freedom of the citizen. To the soldier for his courage and his sacrifice his country extends that affectionate gratitude which will always be the spring at which every high and tender inspiration will be renewed.

recur.

The people's willingness to confess their obligation no soldier will gainsay or doubt who saw the exhibition made not long ago in honor of their most distinguished general. The celebration of that day and the pomp and ceremony that attended it is an event to which the minds of patriots will constantly To see what few who ever lived have seen was the high but solemn privilege of those who beheld that demonstration. Hour after hour the multitude, with sober and intent demeanor moved in one continuous tribute of veneration and respect. From every state and city and from those remoter regions where only matters of serious import penetrate, the citizens of every rank and circumstance were moved to come. Youth and old age then walked together side by side. The gauze and decoration of military display were mingled with those soldiers whose homely uniforms were long since christened by smoke and fire.

The

But all then felt and yielded to a single inspiration. strength and virtue of society depend upon the force of obligations recognized and the highest of these obligations is that imposed by gratitude, the only one that cannot be enforced; not within the realm of contract or expression, it is beyond and supreme. And no profounder lesson could. be taught than this, by the unexampled pageant of that day, that many years after his deeds were done and when his rugged face lived only through the mercy of the chisel and the brush, his countrymen still bearing their benefactor in their hearts were gathered from every quarter of the republic