m 3s?5 r* -_jf ¦' -¦'-- %qA 'm&fc Future of the Two- Races: WHAT THE SOUTH OWES THE NEGRO, AND WHAT HIS PLACE IN PROGRESS SHOJLD BE— THE WONDERFUL POSSIBILITIES OF THE SOUTH. Address of Hon. Henry W. Grady, of Atlanta, Georgia, Delivered at DXllas, Texas, October 27,' 1888. Who saves his country saves all things, and all things saved will bless him. Who lets his country die. lets all things die, and all things dying cnrse him. These words are graven on the statue.:of Benjamin H. Hill in the city of Atlanta, and in their spirit I shall speak to you to-day. Mr. President and Fellow Citizens : I salute the first city of the grandest state Of the greatest government, on this earth. In paying earnest compliment to this thriving city and this generous multitude, I need not cumber speech with argument or statistics. ,, It is enough to say that my friends and myself make obeisance this morning' to the chief metropolis of the State of Texas. If it but holds this pre-eminence — and who can doubt in this auspicious presence that it will — the up rising tide of Texas' prosperity will carry it to glories unspeakable. For I say in soberness, the future of this marvelous and amazing empire, that gives broader and deeper significance to statehood by accepting its modest naming, the mind of man can neither measure, nor comprehend. ¦ I shall be pardoned for resisting the inspiration of this presence and adhering to-day to blunt and rigorous speech — for there are times when fine words are paltry, and this seems to me to be such a time. So I shall turn away from the thunders of the political battle upon which every American hangs intent, and repress the ardor .that at this \ time ' rises in every American heart— for there are issues that strike deeper than any political theory has reached, and conditions of Which partisanry has taken, and can take but little account. Let me therefore with stud ied plainness, and with such precision as is possible — in a spirit ofs;? fraternity that is broader than party limitations, and deeper than poll ical motive — discuss with you certain problems, upon the wise«&, . prompt solution of which depends the glory and prosperity of the iff; , , , : But why — for let us make our way slowly — why "the south?" tv^' invisible union — in a republic against the integrity of which swou^'^/"^ never be drawn or mortal hand uplifted, and in which the rich^.^v.jy,, gathering at the common heart is sent throbbing into every part^ -1;f body politic-^-why is one section held separated from the rest i?v consideration? We can understand why this should be eo in '¦*• that has a community of local interests, or in a state still clothed in that sovereignty of which the debaties of peace and the storm of war has , not stripped her. But why should! a number of states, stretching from I Richmond to Galveston, together by no local interests, held in no auton omy, be thus combined and drawn to a common center? That infn would be absurd who declaimed in Buffalo against the wrongs of the middle states, or who demanded in Chicago a convention for the west to consider the needs of that section. If their it be provincialism that holds the south together, let- us outgrow it; if it be sectionalism, let us root it out of our hearts ; but if it be something deeper than these and essential to our system, let us declare it with frankness, consider it with respect, defend it with firmness and in dignity abide its consequence. What is it that holds the. southern states— though true in thought and deed to the union — so closely bound in sympathy to-day? For a cen tury these states championed' a governmental theory — but that haying triumphed in every forum, fell at last by the sword. They maintained an institution — but that, having been administered in the fullest wis dom of men, fell at last in the higher wisdom of God. They fought a war — but the prejudices of that war have died, its sympathies have broadened and its memories are already the priceless treasure of the republic that is cemented forever with its blood. They looked" out to gether upon the ashes of their homes and the desolation of their field — but out of pitiful resources they have fashioned their homes anew, and plenty rides on the springing harvests. In all the past there is nothing to draw them into essential or lasting alliance— nothing in all that heroic record that cannot be rendered unfearing from provincial' hands into the keeping of American history. But the future holds a problem, in solving which the south must stand alone ; in dealing with which she must come closer together than ambition or despair haye driven her, and on the outcome of which her very existence depends. This problem is to carry within her body politic, two separate races, equal in civil and political rights and nearly equal in numbers. She must carry these races in peace — for discord means ruin. She must carry them separately — for assimilation means debasement. She must carry them in equal justice — for to this she is pledged in honor and in gratitude.! She must carry them even unto the endyfor in human probability she will never be .quit of either. This burden no other people bears to-day — on none hath it ever rested. With out precedent or companionship the south must bear this problem, the awful responsibility of which should win the sympathy of all human |^ind and the protecting watchfulness of God — alone, even unto the end. V by this problem apart from all other peoples of the earth and her \ue position emphasized rather than relieved as I shall show here- I by her material conditions, it is not only fit but it is essential that gpiould hold her brotherhood unimpaired, quicken her sympathies °mi the light or in the shadows of this surpassing problem", work out jgfvn salvation in the fear of God — but of God alone. Sit shall the south do to be saved? Through what paths shall she the end? Through what travail or with what splendors shall she i (o the union this section, its wealth garnered, its resources utalized and its rehabitation complete — and restore to the world this problem, solved in such justice as the finite mind can measure, or finite hand administer? In dealing with this I shall dwell on two points : First, the duty of the south in it relation to the race problem. Second, the duty of the south in relation to its no less unique and important industrial problem. I approach this discussion with a sense of consecration. I beg your patient and cordial sympathy. And I invoke the Almighty God, that having showered on this people His fullest riches has put their hands to this task,' that He will draw near unto us, as he drew near to troubled Israel, and lead us in the ways of honor and uprightness, even through a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. What of the negro? This of him. I want no better friend than the black, boy who was raised by my side/ and who is now trudging patient ly with downcast eyes and shambling figure through his lowly way in life. I want no sweeter music than the crooning of my old "mammy," now dead and gone to rest, as she held me in her loving arms, and bend ing her old black face-above me stole the cares from my brain and led me smiling into sleep. I want no truer soul than that which moved the trusty slave, who for four years while my father fought with the armies that barred his. freedom, slept every night at my mother's cham ber door, holding her and her children as safe as if her husband stood guard, and ready to lay down his humble life on her threshhold. History has no parallel to the faith kept by the negro in, the south during the war. Often 500 negroes to a single white man, and yet through these dusky throngs, the women and children walked in safety, and the un protected homes rested in peace. Unmarshalled, the black battalions moved patiently to the fields in the morning to feed the armies their idleness would have starved, and at night gathered anxiously at the big house to "hear the news from marster," though conscious that his victory made their chains enduring. Everywhere humblegand kindly. The body guard of the helpless. The . rough companion of J,he littl' ones.' The observant friend. The silent sentry in his lowly cabin. Tin ». shrewd counsellor. And when the dead came home, a mourner 'at th open grave. A thousand torches would have disbanded every soother, n krmy, but not one was lighted. When the master going to a #ar ifn /which slavery was involved said to his slave, "I leave my home*, ar/id /loved ones in your charge," the tenderness between man and master ' stood disclosed. And when the slave held that charge sacred through storm and temptation, he gave new meaning to faith and loyalty. -^ rejoice that when freedom came to him after years of waiting it was- the sweeter because the black hands from which the shackles fell were stainless of a single crime against the helpless ones confided toM8 care- From this root, imbeded in a century of kind and constant c)j).m^ia°" ionship, has sprung some strange foliage. As no race has ever . X? ln such unresisting bondage, .none was ever hurried with . such f^Y" riess through freedom into power. Into hands still trembling" from ¦j*tl® blow that broke the shackles was thrust the ballot. In less thaj*J_ tw^-.ve months from the day he walked down the furrow a slave, the ne§?ro mc" tated in legislative halls from which Davis and Calhoun had gone forth, the policy of twelve commonwealths. When his late master protested , against his misrule, the federal drum beat rolled around his strongholds, j and from a hedge of federal1 bayonets he grinned in good natured mso-. lence. From the proven incapacity of that day has he far advancea. Simple, credulous, impulsive— easily led and too often easily bought, is he a safer, more intelligent citizen now than then? Is this mass 01 votes, loosed from old restraints, inviting alliance or awaiting oppor tunity, less menacing than when its purpose was plain and its way direct? . . , . , My countrvmen, right here the south must make a decision. on wmcn verv much depends. Ma ay wise men hold that the white vote of the south should divide, the color line be beaten down, and the southern states ranged on economic or'moral questions as interest or belief de mands. I am compelled to dissent from this view. The worst thing in my opinion that could happen is that the white people of the south should stand in opposing factions, with the vast mass of ignorant or purchasable negro votes between. -Consider such a status. If the negroes were skillfully led it would give them the balance of power — a thing not to be considered. If their vote was not compacted, it would invite the debauching bid of factions, and drift surely to that which was the most corrupt and cunning. With the shiftless habit and irresolu tion of slavery days still possessing him, the negro voter will not in this generation, adrift from war issues, become a steadfast partisan through conscience or conviction. In every community there are col ored men who redeem their race from this reproach, and who vote un der reason. Perhaps in time the bulk of this race may thus adjust itself. But, through what long and monstrous periods of political de bauchery this status would he reach, no tongue can tell. The clear and unmistakable domination of the white race— dominat ing not through violence, not through purchased alliance, but through the integrity of its own vote and the largeness of its sympathy and justice, through which it shall win the support of the better classes of the colored race — that is the hope and assurance of the south. . Other wise, the negro would be bandied from one faction to ,another. His,- •credulity would be played upon, his cupidity tempted, his impulse/s iilnisdyrected, his passions inflamed. He would be forever in alliancte Aith that faction which was most desperate and unscrupulous. Such f state would be worse than reconstruction, for then intelligence wa^ Ifanded, and its speedy triumph assured. But with intelligence and f'-operty dividedr— bidding and overbidding for place and patronage — .Stion increasing with each conflict — the bitterness of desperation ST^M every heart — political debauchery deepening, as each faction S rlA *ts a^ *n ^e n:aseraDle game — there would' be no end to this — until rt,^ suffrage, was hopelessly sullied, our people forever divided, and ou*! m 0U£ 0f corruption may come the incorruptible. God speed that day. Every true man in the south will pray for it and work for it. Through education the negro must be led to know, and through sym pathy to confess, that his interests and the interests of the people of the „ south are identical. The men who from afar off view this subject through the cold eye of speculation, or see it distorted through partisan glasses, insist that, directly or indirectly, the negro race will be put in control of the affairs of the south. We have no fear of this. Already we are attaching to us the best element of that race. As we proceed our alliance will broaden. External pressure but irritates and impedes. Those who would put the negro race in supremacy would work against a divine and infallible decree, for the white race can never submit to, its domination because the white race is the superior race. This is the declaration of no new truth ; it has abided forever in the marrow of our bones and. shall run forever with the blood that feeds Anglo-Saxon hearts. In'political compliance the south has evaded the truth and men have drifted from their convictions. But we cannot escape this issue ; it faces us wherever we turn. It is an issue that has been and will be. The races and tribes of earth are of divine origin. Behind the laws of man and the decrees of war stands the law of God. What God hath separated let no man join together. The Indian, the Malay, the negro, the caucassian, these types stand as markers of God's will. Let not man tinker with the work of the Almighty. Unity of civilization, no more than unity of faith, will never be witnessed on -earth. No race has risen or will rise above its ordained place. Here-is the pivotal fact of this great matter : Two races are made equal in law and in political rights, between whom the caste of race has set an impass able gulf. This gulf is bridged by a statute and the races are urged to cross thereon. This cannot be. The fiat of the Almighty has gone forth, and in eighteen centuries of history it is written. We would es cape this issue if we could. From the depth of its soul the south invokes from heaven "peace on earth and good will to man." She would not if she could cast this race back into the condition from • hi \ we daily thank God it was raised. She would not deny its _smalle abridge its fullest privilege. Not to lift this burden forever from people would she do the least of these things. She must walk throu^ the valley of the shadow, for God has so ordained. But he has ordaineo that she shall walk in that integrity of race that, created in his wisdom, has been perpetuated in^his strength. Standing in the presence Of this multitude, sobered with the responsibility of the message I deliver to the young men of the south, I declare that the- truth above all others, to be worn unsullied and sacred in your hearts, to be surrendered to , mo force, sold at no price, compromised in no necessity, but cherished/ and defended as the covenant of your prosperity, and the pledge of p£ace to your children, is that the white race can never submit to the direct or indirect domination of the race that insolent tinkers with divinep decree would put above us, but that white race must and will conltrol the south. ¦ / It is a race issue at last. Let us come to this point, and stand here. Here the air is pure and the light is clear, and here honor apd peace abide. Juggling and evasion deceives not a man. Compromise and subservience has carried not a point. There is not a white man north or south who does not feel it stir in the gray matter of his brain and throb in his heart. Not a negro who does not feel its power. It is not a sectional issue. It speaks in Ohio and in Georgia. It speaks where- ever the Anglo-Saxon touches an alien race. It has just spoken in uni versally approved legislation in excluding the Chinaman from our gates, not for his ignorance, veins of corruption, but because he _ sought to establish an inferior race in a republic fashioned in the wisdom and defended by the blood of a homogeneous people. The Anglo-Saxon blood has dominated always and everywhere. It fed Alfred's veins when he wrote the charter of English liberty ; it gathered about Hampden as he stood beneath the oak ; it thundered in Cromwell's veins as he fought his king ; it humbled Napoleon at Water loo ; it has touched the desert and jungle with undying glory ; it car ried the drumbeat of England around the world and spread on every continent the gospel of liberty and of God ; it established this republic, carved it from the wilderness, conquered it from the Indians, wrested it from England, and at last, stilling its own tumult, consecrated it forever as the home of the Anglo-Saxon, and the theater of his transcending achievement. Never one foot of it can be surrendered While that blood lives in American veins, and feeds American hearts, to the domination of an alien and inferior race. And yet that is just what is proposed. Not in twenty years have we seen a day so pregnant with fate to this section as the 6th of next No vember. If President Cleveland is then defeated, which God forbid, I believe these states will be led through sorrows compared to which the woes of reconstruction will be as the fading dews of morning to the roaring flood. To dominate these states through the colored vote wiih such aid as federal patronage may debauch or federal power deter, and thus through its chosen instrument perpetuate its rule, is in my opinion the settled purpose of the Republican party. I am appalled when I measure the passion in which this negro problem has been judged by the leaders of the party. Fifteen years ago Vice-President Wilson said — and I honor his memory as that of a courageous man : "We shall hot have finished with the south until we force its people to change their miethods, thought, and think as we think." I repeat these words for I Jefeard them when a boy and they fell on my ears as the knell of my people's doom — "to change their thought, and make them think as we- think." Not enough to have conquered our armies — to have deci- . mated our ranks — to have desolated our fields and reduced us to ab- jiSteted poverty, to have struck the ballot from our hands while they enfranchised our slaves — to have held us prostrate under bayonets while the intaolent mocked and thieves plundered — but our very souis must be rifled olf their faiths, our sacred traditions cudgeled from memory, and our imanotal minds beaten into subjection until thought had lost its in tegrity, \and we were forced to "think as they think." And just now General ISherman has said — I honor him as a great soldier : "The negro must be allowed to vote, and his vote must be counted otherwisjb, so sure as there is a God in heaven, you will have another war, m«5re cruel than the last, when the torch and the dagger will take the place of the muskets of well ordered battalions. Should the negro strike that blow, in seeming justice, there will be millions to assist them." And this General took Johnson's sword in surrender ! He looked upon the thin and ragged battalions in gray, that for four years had held his teeming and heroic legions at bay. Facing them, he read their courage in their depleted ranks, and gave them a soldier's parole. When he found it in his heart to taunt these heroes with this threat, I fear that, careless as he1 was with fire twenty-five years ago, he is now more careless of his words. If we could hope that this problem would be set tled within our dives I would appeal from neither this madness nor un- manliness. But when I know, strive as I may, I must at last render this awful heritage into the untried hands of my son, already dearer to me than my life, and that he must in turn bequeath it unsolved to his children, I cry out against the inhumanity that deepens its difficulties with this incendiary threat, and beclouds its real issue with inflaming passion. This problem is not only enduring, but it is widening. The exclusion of the Chinaman is the first step in the revolution that shall save liberty and law and religion to this land, and in peace and order, not enforced on the gallows or at the bayonet's end, but proceeding from the heart of an harmonious people, shall secure in the enjoyment of these rights, and control of this republic, the homogeneous people that established and has maintained it. The next step will be taken when some brave statesman looking demagogy in the face shall move to call to the stranger at our gates "who comes here?" admitting every man who seeks a home, or honors our institutions, and whose habit and blood will run with the native current, but excluding all who seek to plant anarchy or to establish alien men or measures on our soil. And will then demand that the standard of our citizenship be lifted and the right of acquiring our suffrage be abridged. When that day copies, and God speed its coming, the position of the south will be fully uj^erstood and every where "approved. Until then let, us — giving the negro every right, civil and political, measured in that fullness the strong should always accord the weak — holding him in closer friendship and sympathy \than he is held by those who would crucify us for his sake — realizing that on his prosperity our's depends — let us resolve that never by external pres sure or internal division shall he establish domination, directly or\ih- directly, over that race that everywhere has maintained its supremacy. [Applause.] Let this resolution be cast on the lines of equity an$l justice. Let it be the pledge of honest, safe and impartial administra tion, and we shall command the support of the colored race itself, mi^re dependent than any other on the bounty and protection of governn?ient- Let us be wise and patient, and we shall secure through his acquies^ence what otherwise we should win in conflict and hold in uncertainty./ -A-nd as in slavery we led the slave through kindness to heights his r?f ce in Africa will never reach, so in freedom through wisdom and just|lce we shall lead him a freeman to a prosperous contentment to wh|ch his friends in the north have slight conception. What is stolen fro^m him in fraud is unworthy and shall not endure. What is taken in vi\°lence is worse. What he yields' to a policy that commands his sympathy and which he will help to enforce — that is precious and out of it shall come healing and peace. [Applause.] All this in no unkindness to the negro— but rather that he may be led in justice and in peace to his uttermost good. Not in septionalism —for my heart beats true to the union, to the glory of which your life and heart is pledged. Not in disregard of the world's opinion — for to render back this problem in the World's approval is the sum of my ambition and the height of human achievement. [Applause.] Not in reactionary spirit— but rather to make clear that new and grander way up which the south is marching to higher destiny, and on which I would not halt her for all the spoils that have been gathered unto par ties since Cataline conspired and Caesar fought. Not in passion, rny countrymen, but in reason — not in narrowness, but in , breadth-ythat we may solve this problem in calmness, and in truth, and lifting its shadows let perpetual sunshine pour down on two races, walking to gether in peace and contentment. ,'Then shall this problem, that threat ened our ruin, have proved pur blessing, and work our salvation,; Then the south putting behind her all the achievements of her past — and in war and in pea.ce they beggar eulogy — may stand upright among the nations and challenge the judgment of man and the approval of God, in paving worked out in .their sympathy and in His guidance, this last and surpassing miracle of human government. [A thunder of applause.] What of the south's industrial problem? When we remember that amazement followed the payment by thirty-seven million Frenchmen of a billion dollars indemnity to- Germany — that the five million whites of the Bouth rendered to the torch and swdrd three billions of property, and that thirty million dollars a year, or six hundred million dollars'in twenty years, has been, given from our poverty in cordial willingness as pensions for^porthern soldiers, the wonder is that we are here at all. There is a h^re with which history has dealt lightly, but that, stand ing pathetic and heroic in the genesis of our new growth, has interested me greatly — the soldier-farmer of the south in '65. What chance had he fqr the future as he wandered amid his empty barns, his stock, labor and implements gone — gathered up the fragments of his wreck, and urgipg kindly his borrowed mule, paying 60 per cent usury for all that he bojaght, and buying all on credit, his crop mortgaged before it was planted, his children in want, his neighborhood in choas, working under jiew conditions and retrieving every error by a costly year, plodding all ;day down the furrow, hopeless and adrift, save when at night he went ba fnd e8Pecially young men, look back for £rnfa'°nt0^hat1S -beSt 1Q11their traditions. Themopylae cast ™ +Lrf 1't™? m ^u°nC mrld and sustained Spartan arms for more thari a century Themopylae had survivors to tell the story of its defeat. •¦ Jfhe Alamo had none. Though voiceless, it shall speak. From 15 its dumb walls Liberty cried out to Texas, as God called from the cloud unto Moses. Bowie and Fannin, though dead still live! Their voices rang above the din of Goliad and the glory of San Jacinto, and they marched with the Texas veterans who rejoiced at the birth of Texas' in dependence. It is the spirit of the Alamo that moved above the Texas soldiers as they charged like demigods through a thousand battle fields, and it is the spirit of the Alamo that whispers from their graves, held in every state of the union, ennobling with their dust the soil that was crimsoned with their blood. In the spirit of this inspiration, and in the thrill of the amazing growth that surrounds you, my young friends, it will be strange if the young men of Texas do not carry the lone star in to the heart of the struggle in which the south is engaged. The south needs her sons to-day more than when she summoned them to the forum to maintain her political supremacy ; more than when the bugle called them to the field to defend issues put to the arbit rament of the sword. Her old body is instinct with appeal — calling on us to come and give her fuller independence than she has ever sought in field or forum. It is ours to show that, as she prospered with slaves, she shall prosper still more with freemen. Ours to see that from the lists she entered in poverty, she shall emerge in prosperity. Ours to car ry the transcending traditions of the old south, from which none of us can in honor or reverence depart, unstained and unbroken into the new. Shall we fail? Shall the blood of the old south, the best strain that ever uplifted human endeavor — that ran like water at duty's call and never stained where it touched-^shall this blood that pours into our veins, through a century, luminous with achievement, for the first time falter and be driven back from irresolute hearts? Shall we fail when the old south — that left us better heritage in manliness and courage, than in broad and rich acres — -calls us to settle the problems that beset her? A soldier lay wounded on the hard fought field. The roar of the bat tle had died away and he rested in the deadly stillness of its aftermath. Not a sound was heard as he lay there sorely smitten and speechless, but the shriek of the wounded and the sigh of the dying soul as it . escaped, from the tumult of earth unto the unspeakable peace ofTthe stars.*v)ff over the field flickered the lanterns of the surgeons withl.the litter-bear ers, searching that they might take away those whoseljjves could be .saved, and leave in sorrow those who were doomed to dim With plead ing eyes through the darkness this poor soldier watched, Buable to^ turn or to speak, as the lanterns drew near. At last the lighWflashed in -his face, the surgeon with kindly intent bent over him, hesitated a moment, shook his head and was gone — leaving the poor fellow a JJEie with death." He watched in patient agony as they went on from one Srt.of the , .field the other. As they came back .the surgeon bent overjMmuagairi. "I believe if this poor fellow lives till sundown to-morrow h^will get* well." And off again, leaving, him — not to death, but with hopeli For 'sjll night long these words fell into his heart as the dews fell from ^he starp on his lips : "If he but lives till sundown he will get well.'^s^e turned his weary head to the east, and watched for the coming sagtjf?' Au last the' stars went out, the east trembled with radiance, and thefsun sftpwly lift ing above the horizon, tinged, his pallid face with flame;, He watched / 16 it inch by inch as it climbed slowly up the heavens. He thought of life~ its hopes and ambitions, and its sweetness and its raptures ; and he fortified his soul against despair until the sun had reached high noon. It sloped down its slow descent and his life was ebbing away and his heart was faltering and he needed stronger stimulus to make him stand the struggle until the end of the day had come, he thought of his far-off home, the blessed house resting in tranquil peace, with the roses climb ing to its door and the trees whispering to its windows, arid dozing in the sunshine, the orchard, and the little brook running like a silver thread through the forest. "If I live till sundown, I will see it again ; I will walk down the shady lane ; I will open the battered gate and the mocking bird shall call to me from the orchard, and I will drink again at the old mossy spring." And he thought of the wife who had come from the neighboring farin-house and put her hand shyly in his and brought sweetness to his life and light to his home. "If I live till sun down I shall look once more into her deep and loving eyes, and press her brown head once more to my aching breast." And he thought of the old father, patient in prayer, bending lower and lower every day un der his load of sorrow and of age: "If I but live till sundown I shall see him again, and wind my strong arm about his feeble body, and his 'hands shall rest upon my head, while the unspeakable healing of his blessing falls into my heart 1" And he thought of the little children that clambered on his knees and tangled their little hands in his heart strings, waking to them such music as earth shall not equal or heaven surpass — "if I live till sundown they shall little find my parched lips with their warm' mouths, and their little fingers shall run once more over my face !" And he thought of his old mother, who gathered these chil dren about her and bathed her old heart afresh in their brightness, and attuned her old lips anew to their prattle, that she might live till her big boy came home — "if I live till sundown, I, will see her again, and I will rest my head at my old place on her knees and weep away all, all memory of this desolate night !" And the son of God, who had died for men, bending from the skies, put the hand that had been nailed to the cross on the ebbing life and held^t staunch until the sun went down, and the stars came out and shone down into the brave man's heart and were blurred in his glisten ing eyes. And the lanterns of the surgeons came arid he was led from death unto life. The world is a battlefield strewn with the wrecks of governments and institutions ; .of theories and of faiths that have gone down in the ravage pf years. On this field lies the south, smitten with her problems. Above t\ field swing the lanterns of God. Amid the carnage walks the great physician. Over the south he bends— "if ye but live till to-morrow's sundawnyc shall endure!" My countrymen, let us for her sake turn our faces to the east and watch as the soldier watched for the coming sun. ILet us staunch her wounds and hold her steadfast, as the sun mountfe the skies. As it descends let us minister to her and stand con stant atjher side, for the sake of our children and of generations unborn that shaill suffer if she fails. And when the sun has gone down, and the day ofJher probation has ended, and the stars have filled her heart the- 17 lanterns shall be swung over the field again and the- great physician shall lead her up from trouble into content — from suffering into peace — , from death unto life ! .„-._-_- , ^ Let every man here pledge himself in this k *q and ardent hour, as I pledge myself and the boy that shall follow mt> 'ivery man himself and his son — here hand to hand and heart to hear*--- tha* 'in deep and earn est loyalty, in patient painstaking andl >v