Most of us have passed far beyond the meridian of life, but I trust
there is much usefulness in store for us yet. We should not content
ourselves with the victories and honors of the past. The present and
future have demands upon us. The welfare of our respective communities
and States, as well as of our common country, calls for our continued
labors in their behalf.
I shall always remember a remark made by my friend, Jerry R. Morton,
of Lexington (one of Morgan’s men, and, for many years after the war,
Circuit Judge of that district), who has passed on ahead of us, one day
while we were in Canada together. We were walking along the Detroit
River, and as we took in the broad landscape view that stretched out
before us, and saw the United States flag floating from a fort below
the city on the other side, he stopped and, pointing across the river,
exclaimed: “I tell you, Stone, that’s a great country over yonder!” I
acknowledged the correctness of his estimate of the American republic.
Standing on foreign soil, poor, self-exiled Rebels as we were, we did
not feel at liberty to call this _our_ country then. But all of us have
the right to call it _our_ country today. With peace and prosperity
throughout the land and all sections again united in fraternal
feeling, we have, even in this progressive age, beyond question the
greatest country in the world.
In the world war that has practically, if not entirely, closed, we know
what our country did for the cause of human liberty. The boys in khaki
went across the seas,—the descendants of those who wore the gray and
those who wore the blue, and they turned the tide of battle against the
foe. That is conceded. We are today looked up to by all the nations of
Europe to bring about a Treaty of Peace, and a League of Nations, that
will prevent, as far as possible, wars for the future. We have, in my
opinion, dealing with that situation and laboring with it in Paris,
as great a President as this country has ever had; and if he comes
back home, as I believe he will, with this League of Nations secured,
and a Treaty of Peace that shall do justice to all the belligerents,
including our recent foes, as well as the other nations of the world,
he will go down in history, in my opinion, as the greatest statesman of
all time—Woodrow Wilson. May God bless him! [Great applause.]
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors.