Title
Dedication Address by General Davis
Description
Excerpt from Chicago Tribune with information on the dedication of Our Heroes: Civil War Monument.
Source
"Decoration Day," Chicago Tribune, May 31, 1870.
Date
May 31, 1870
Original Format
Newspaper
Text
At this point the general monument, which has been draped with American flags, was unveiled, and the speaker proceeded as follows:
My sole remaining duty here is to dedicate this artistic tribute to the sacred purpose for which it has been erected. This towering shaft is a symbol of faith as old as the race. This simple inscription – “to our heroes” – fully expressed the large-hearted liberality of the builders, and yonder sentinel upon its top, scanning with earnest and watchful eyes, will recall the careless citizen to a sense of the duty he owes to his country.
Long may it stand to teach that lesson. May its white marble gleam athwart the landscape long after these primeval oaks shall have moldered into earth. May other generations come here to whom this war will be a tradition of the past, but who will have inherited the freedom our age has defended. Here may the young learn that the love of country is a no less noble impulse than the love of family, and that any nation is weak whose citizens prefer commercial prosperity to national honor; that, pure and holy as is the love of family, of father and mother, of wife and children, the keystone which holds all together is the love of country, without which there is neither hearth nor home, neither church nor school, but a nation dwindles and becomes despicable and its people slaves.
Nor should we fear war as a calamity. It is well sometimes for these clouds to burst upon a nation. The sordid and short-sighted see only the ruin it causes, the farms untilled, the houses burned, the blight of industry, the desolation and woe which falls upon those across whose path the bloody trail is drawn. They forget that long prosperity and drowsy peace, by some subtle law, breeds discontent, while it enervates and saps the vital force of a people. It might even be said that it is better to fight than to become disused to fighting; it is better to have war than a spirit averse to war, a commercial timidity which would rather buy a peace than have its gains interrupted. For see how short a time heals the wounds, and almost effaces the scars of war! Already the harvests wave over the old fields of battle, trade resumes its channels, and in most things the nation seems born again. Let moralists explain it as they may, what we call a scourge is, like other evils, often a thinly masked blessing. It vindicates national honor. It has given the world great inventions and discoveries. A wise nation prepares in peace for war, and every good citizen is a willing solider of the republic.
My sole remaining duty here is to dedicate this artistic tribute to the sacred purpose for which it has been erected. This towering shaft is a symbol of faith as old as the race. This simple inscription – “to our heroes” – fully expressed the large-hearted liberality of the builders, and yonder sentinel upon its top, scanning with earnest and watchful eyes, will recall the careless citizen to a sense of the duty he owes to his country.
Long may it stand to teach that lesson. May its white marble gleam athwart the landscape long after these primeval oaks shall have moldered into earth. May other generations come here to whom this war will be a tradition of the past, but who will have inherited the freedom our age has defended. Here may the young learn that the love of country is a no less noble impulse than the love of family, and that any nation is weak whose citizens prefer commercial prosperity to national honor; that, pure and holy as is the love of family, of father and mother, of wife and children, the keystone which holds all together is the love of country, without which there is neither hearth nor home, neither church nor school, but a nation dwindles and becomes despicable and its people slaves.
Nor should we fear war as a calamity. It is well sometimes for these clouds to burst upon a nation. The sordid and short-sighted see only the ruin it causes, the farms untilled, the houses burned, the blight of industry, the desolation and woe which falls upon those across whose path the bloody trail is drawn. They forget that long prosperity and drowsy peace, by some subtle law, breeds discontent, while it enervates and saps the vital force of a people. It might even be said that it is better to fight than to become disused to fighting; it is better to have war than a spirit averse to war, a commercial timidity which would rather buy a peace than have its gains interrupted. For see how short a time heals the wounds, and almost effaces the scars of war! Already the harvests wave over the old fields of battle, trade resumes its channels, and in most things the nation seems born again. Let moralists explain it as they may, what we call a scourge is, like other evils, often a thinly masked blessing. It vindicates national honor. It has given the world great inventions and discoveries. A wise nation prepares in peace for war, and every good citizen is a willing solider of the republic.