And State Papers 43 



vices in the presence of those who fought through 

 the Civil War, who risked the loss of life, who en 

 dured the loss of limb, who fought as enlisted men 

 or came out boys not yet ready to enter college but 

 able to bear commissions in the army of the United 

 States, as the result of three or four years of service 

 with the colors. There are those of each class of 

 whom I have spoken who have addressed or will 

 address you to-day. They are entitled to speak 

 as comrades of the great dead. But the younger 

 among us are only entitled to pay to the great dead 

 the homage of those to whom ordered liberty has 

 been handed down as a heritage because of the blood, 

 and of the sweat, and of the toil of the men who 

 fought to a finish the great Civil War. Great were 

 the lessons you taught us in war. Great have been 

 the lessons you have taught us in peace since the 

 war. Sincerely and humbly the men who came after 

 you hasten to acknowledge the debt that is owing to 

 you. You were the men of the mighty days who 

 showed yourselves equal to the days. We have to 

 day lesser tasks; and shame to us if we flinch from 

 doing or fail to do well these lesser tasks, when 

 you carried to triumphant victory a task as difficult 

 as that which was set you ! Here in the presence 

 of one of the illustrious dead whose names will re 

 main forever on the honor roll of the greatest Re 

 public upon which the sun has ever shone, it be 

 hooves all of us, young and old, solemnly and rev 

 erently to pledge ourselves to continue undimtned 

 the traditions you have left us; to do the work, 



