2i 6 Brotherhood and 



gation under which this country is to the men who 

 from '6 1 to '65 took up the most terrible and vitally 

 necessary task which has ever fallen to the lot of 

 any generation of men in the Western Hemisphere. 

 Other men have rendered great service to the coun 

 try, but the service you rendered was not merely 

 great it was incalculable. Other men by their 

 lives or their deaths have kept unstained our honor, 

 have wrought marvels for our interest, have led us 

 forward to triumph, or warded off disaster from us ; 

 other men have marshaled our ranks upward across 

 the stony slopes of greatness. But you did more, 

 for you saved us from annihilation. We can feel 

 proud of what others did only because of what you 

 did. It was <iven to you, when the mighty days 

 came, to do the mighty deeds for which the days 

 called, and if your deeds had been left undone, all 

 that had been already accomplished would have 

 turned into apples of Sodom under our teeth. The 

 glory of Washington and the majesty of Marshall 

 would have crumbled into meaningless dust if you 

 and your comrades had not buttressed their work 

 with your strength of steel, your courage of fire. 

 The Declaration of Independence would now sound 

 like a windy platitude, the Constitution of the United 

 States would ring as false as if drawn by the Abbe 

 Sieyes in the days of the French Terror, if your 

 stern valor had not proved the truth of the one and 



