Morgan County Democrat

OUR PATRIOTISM

Our community may be a little back in a business way, but when it comes to genuine Americanism, we take off our hats to no community—in fact we believe that we can feel that we are just a bit better than many, and a whole lot better than some communities in this respect. Nor do we make these claims through an idle boast, but they can be backed up with facts. For example, the big sale of the American Legion Memorial poppies. Considering our population we doubt if any place can boast of so large a sale. The Memorial services held Sunday morning, and the interest shown, are not to be duplicated in many communities. Then on Decoration Day—not only here but at various places throughout the county, the exercises were splendidly attended, with a genuine patriotic solemnity. While flowers were scarce, the real spirit of the occasion was present in abundance. Every Decoration Day presents a striking and mournful illustration of the way in which the grand old soldiers of the Civil war are disappearing, and every year takes them from us the faster and faster. What is true of the thinned ranks here is true all over the country. We would not count much on the patriotism of one who could look on the depleted and feeble ranks of the Grand Army yesterday, as they were about, carrying out their solemn rites, without a choke in the throat or a dimness of the eye. These few represent the hundreds of thousands of valiant young men who saved the country for us and for those who are to come. When we revere their patriotism, we strengthen our own. As the years come and go, the ranks of the long line of World war veterans as we now see them, will also be thinned, and the present scenes shifted to them, but America herself will be essentially dead if the custom of Memorial Day dies.