Decoration Day [pp. 442-444]

Decoration Day 443
gone, when the last personal ties which at- cal exigencies, inexorable in their worktach the living worker to the dead soldier ing have compelled i~ there is no more to
have all been frayed away, Decoration Day be said. Onr dead havc not been wasted.
will no longer be the same. The pathos The youiig lives have been given for the
which is its chief characteristic will have benefit of the nation, just as truly and
vanished. The personal element will have just as fully as the lives of their fathers.
bcen withdrawn, and the day will have be- That they have been given as heroically
come a national holiday. The tired toiler needs not to be said. The dead died well;
will then be too eager to escape the bond- thc only question is, Is it well that they
agc of his labor to inquire too closely as died? And this is a question that canto the wherefore of his release. not be answered here; the answer lies
The fio~'ers this Decoration Day will deep in the heart of each individual citirest upon new graves, with young lives zen, and will be expressed as was that of
hidden in their depths. The old soldiers our fathers to a similar question,-in the
have, one by one, in preceding years, voice of the nation at the polls. Hence,
dr~~pped into the universally appointed wl~ile Decoration Day suggests the quesplace. During the last two years the God tion, it is not to be answered upon this
of Battles has ~~`~in demanded his sacri- day, for this of all days should be kept
fice, and the yon~ig have fallen in their free from politics.
thousands. Rachel again weeps for her But somehow the pathetic and the herochildren, and will not be comforted. ic appear to be somewhat absent when
These younger dead have fallen in bat- we contemplate th~e latter dead. We
tle far different from that which claimed miss tlie enthusiastic, almost spiritual, dethe lives of their fathers. The latter died votion which was so apparent in the case
upon their own soil, defending its integ- of those wl~o fell in the early`60's. The
rity, and preserving and extending its emotions of ~he masses under stress of
freedom. Their sons have fallen far away strong feeling express themselves in song.
from home, adding new lands to those After two years of fighting, we have proinherited from their fathers. The result duced no songs of any moral significance.
of the former sacrifice appears in broader We have not sung, and are not singing,
ideas of liberty and actual human gain. any new songs which at all compare in inIt was necessary that slavery should be tensity, in loftiness of ideal, or in sweetabolished, and any sacrifice by which this ness of thought with those of forty years
was accomplished was cheap. The nation ago, which gathered into themselves the
must necessari]y have unity; the homo- heroism, the affection, and the sacrifice of
geneity of the body politic must, once for the people. When our soldiers now sing,
all, and beyond question, be established they do it in the raucons tones of the
and seen red, and no human price could modern music-hal], in the blatant brass
have been too great to pay for such a gain. and tympany of Chauvinistic hysteria.
Hence, while the individual weeps over And this absence of poetic expression
the ~~~~Ss~ry cost, the country rejoices ought to provoke thought. What is the
over the treasure gained. And this is the motive that lies behind the enlistment of
glory of Decoration Day. When we con- the soldier in these modern wars? Is it
sider the loss, our hearts are necessarily consciousness of the rectitude and honor
sad; wl~en we contemplate the ~ichieve- of the cause for which he goes to lay down
ment, we are compelled to admit that it his life? If that is so,-and it is to be
was wofth while. trusted it is so,-one of the most remark Can this be said of the price paid for able phenomena in this connection is the
tlie new treasure? This question mus non-existence of a poet to translate these
appeal strongly to every citizen. It is the tho~~ghts and aspirations into the noblest
one upon the answer to which depends the verse. Where are our singers? The pospolicy of the nation in the immediate fu- session of one poet of great worth would
ture. If circumstances have been such as - gild the gloom of Decoration Day and rob
to render the sacrifice necessary, if the the terrors of death of some of their somactual conditions, the economic and politi-`berness. But we look in vain for him.