MEMORIAL DAY 1 



Memorial day services are annual recurring schools of 

 patriotism : ' ' Out of the old fields cometh the new corn. ' ' 



We meet today to talk over and again recall the old 

 story of the past. The Ten Commandments, the Creed, 

 and the Sermon on the Mount cannot be repeated too 

 often. The history of our country's progress, its trials 

 and the sacrifices of its heroic dead, though old, is ever 

 new Destiny is seldom foreseen and never prevented; 

 things are stronger than men. Whilst this nation has 

 struggled in order to work out its own destiny in the his- 

 tory of the world, events seem to have shaped themselves 

 beyond the power of man to control. 



We are now ready to sum up the history of the world's 

 greatest century. The war of 1861 was the penalty paid 

 by this country for the stupendous wrong of human 

 slavery. The older people here remember the existence 

 of the institution, but it lingers in their minds with the 

 ancient history of a thousand years ago. 



Lincoln now belongs to the ages; his was the kindest 

 and tenderest heart of the century, yet he was stricken 

 down as the final sacrifice to the institution which pro- 

 duced the Civil War. 



Peace came with safety and it was peace with honor. 

 The war was worth all it cost in treasure, blood, and 

 tears. But for the mighty pension roll and the vast rows 

 of whitened headstones in the national cemeteries it 

 would be hard to realize the magnitude of that struggle. 

 The comrades of that war grow nearer to each other 



i Address by John F. Lacey delivered at Clarinda, Iowa, May 30, 1899. 



