USA > California > Addresses delivered before the California Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, 1913 > Part 7
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we met the steamer which had pushed up the Big Horn to the mouth of the Little Big Horn, and the whole lower deck was made into a hospital, the floor covered with grass and tarpaulin. The cam- paign was over and we returned to our camp on the north side of the Yellowstone, just below the mouth of the Big Horn.
CUSTER'S COMMAND.
Commissioned officers
31
Enlisted men
585
Citizens
3
White scouts
3
Colored interpreter
1
Half breed guide
1
Crow scouts
6
Arikaree or Rees
25
655
LOSSES, KILLED WITH CUSTER.
Officers
13
Enlisted men
191
Citizens
3
Half Breed guide
.
1
208
KILLED WITH RENO.
Officers
3
Enlisted men 48
1
Colored interpreter
1
Indians (Rees)
3
56
Total killed 264
WOUNDED WITH RENO
Enlisted men (one died)
52
Indian, Crow
1
Total
53
White scout
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Twenty-four were killed and 16 wounded in the intrenchments with Reno.
I suppose you will wish to hear the aftermath, and learn what hap- pened to these Indians, that gave the army such a blow. As early as July the Indians who had left the agencies, secretly left the hostiles and began to return, though the agents made as little noise over their return as they had over the departure. Surgeon Lord's pocket med- ical case, blood-stained, was at a friendly agency, 200 miles from the battle-field, four days after the fight. This indicates the intimate relations between the peaceful, friendly Indians and the hostiles in the field.
There still remained about 7,000 of the wildest Indians to be dealt with. The army was given full charge, and the work of reformation began.
The Indians could not keep together, it was necessary to split up to subsist, and they did so, expecting to be unmolested during the winter. It was decided to punish none individually, but to conquer every bond and to dismount and disarm all that were captured, a dismounted and disarmed Sioux being fairly innocuous.
Sept. 8th Captain Mills destroyed a village of 37 lodges, killing or capturing nearly the whole outfit with their winter supplies and many trophies of the Custer battle. Crazy Horse heard of it and came up with 1,000 warriors, to destroy the two companies that had done this, but Crook arrived on the spot with his whole command, in time to drive him from the field.
Oct. 21st, Miles struck Sitting Bull's following of over 400 lodges, and so thoroughly defeated and pursued him, that over half of his followers deserted and came in and surrendered.
Nov. 25th, General Mackenzie struck Dull Knife's village of 173 lodges, killed many, captured almost everything and drove the In- dians into the mountains, where many perished from cold and hunger. This camp was also a store-house of provisions and trophies of the Custer battle.
Dec. 7th, Lieutenant Baldwin struck Sitting Bull's village, now re- duced to 199 lodges, and drove them 20 miles, capturing considerable property. Five days later he surprised this village, now reduced to 130 lodges, and captured several hundred horses and practically the entire camp with its winter supplies. This fight eliminated Sitting Bull, who later moved to British territory with a few miserable fol- lowers.
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Jan. 1st, 3rd, 7th and 8th, General Miles struck Crazy Horse, defeated him completely, driving him for miles in a terrible storm and breaking the spirit of this able warrior and demoralizing his fol- lowers.
These engagements only represent a series of culminations, the result of constant scouting which prevented hunting, and caused frequent removals of winter camps with much suffering. As Sheri- dan said: "This constant pounding and sleepless activity upon the part of our troops in midwinter began to tell."
By the 6th of May over 5,000 Indians, not counting the little bands that sneaked in, came in, gave themselves up and surrendered horses and arms.
May 7th, General Miles struck Lame Deer's camp of 51 lodges, captured 400 horses, killed Lame Deer, destroyed the camp and dis- persed the last organized band of Sioux in the field.
THE MISSION OF THE UNITED STATES
By HARRIS WEINSTOCK, at Palace Hotel, Sept. 14, 1911.
Sometime ago, I was in Dublin. Finding myself in the great Na- tional Museum, I was soon ushered into a goodsized chamber, the walls of which were covered with portraits of Ireland's celebrities. Look- ing over them, I was rather surprised to find among them the picture of the great English actor, David Garrick. Calling an Irish attendant nearby, I said to him, "I see that you have the portrait here of David Garrick. Was he an Irishman?" He replied, "I don't know, sir, but I will find out for yez," and he trotted off and presently he returned with a catalog, and handed me the open page, upon which was given a biographical sketch of Garrick. I read it through care- fully and I found that it was non-committal-It made no reference to the land of his birth. So I concluded that he must have had some- thing to do with the Irish stage during his career, and in that way got his portrait in the collection. Turning to this Irishman, I said, "By the way, old man, you ought to be mighty proud of being an Irishman. Just see what a wonderful gathering you have here of great men. See the remarkable orators and statesmen and writers and soldiers and poets that this little country has given to civilization. You ought to be mighty proud of being an Irishman." I thought I was making
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a great impression upon my friend, when suddenly he turned upon me, and he said, "Ah, but you ought to see the prize fighters that Ireland has given to the world." He said, "Do you know Billie Burke? Oh, Billie is the bye for yez. You know when Billie gets his fisht into the place where the other fellow ought to grow his galway sluggers, he just sends them into the land of nod. Billie is the bye for yez." And from his point of view, that was Ireland's greatest achievement.
Now, strange as it may seem, my Irish friend belongs to a good sized family. There are even those among us who look upon our fighters as our greatest men, who regard the soldier as foremost in the rank of the world's celebrities. I, for one, would not want to say a disparaging word against the soldier, because I realize that, in common with the rest of you, I owe a great debt to the soldier, and especially to the soldiers of this nation. And yet if you and I were to look down the pages of history, with the thought in mind of picking out the world's greatest men, of picking out those who have achieved most for humanity, we would not select the Hannibals and the Caesars and the Alexanders and the Napoleons; we would seek out the great men of peace, we should regard as the world's high- est and noblest immortals such names as Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Paul, who gave all that they had to give, the very best within them for the peaceful uplift of the human family, and whose influences for good have been felt by untold millions who have passed away, by untold millions who are living today, the world's highest and noblest deeds have been achieved and will be achieved by the men of peace rather than by the men of war.
This is an age of the achievement of seeming political and social impossibilities. Who could have dreamed a few decades ago that such benighted nations as Russia and Persia and Turkey and China, would, in our day, have a constitutional form of government? And yet we have lived to see Russia, benighted, down-trodden, oppressed Rus- sia, enjoying a duma, we have lived to see Turkey, and Persia des- potically ruled for ages, enjoying a constitutional form of government. And now the rulers of China have announced that they propose vol- untarily to give to their people likewise a constitutional form of government. Who could have believed a few decades ago that a Peace Congress, attended by the representatives of practically all the nations, would be assembled in one of the cities of Europe, to dis- cuss, not the ways of war, but the ways of peace ?
We can look back upon many great and serious evils that have been wiped out. Think of the tremendous evil under which our fore-
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bears lived in the times of the inquisition, when the dungeon, the rack, the thumb screw and the stake prevailed. Think of living in the time when the burning of witches upon our own soil was a mat- ter of common occurrence. Think of living in the period when im- prisonment for debt was the accepted condition. And then think of living in the era when man regarded it as his divine right to own his fellow man. You and I are blessed in living in a period when these things are all things of the dead past. And yet the world's greatest evil still remains to be wiped out, the greatest evil since the dawn of civilization, the greatest plague of mankind-war. This evil, my friends, overshadows all other evils. Just think of the tremendous cost to civilization in human life, in happiness, in human comfort and profit, at which the world's wars have been conducted. Think of Europe alone, expending annually five hundred millions of dollars upon her armies and navies. Think of her four millions of men, wearing her naval and military uniforms, leading the lives purely of consumers, a burden and a tremendous tax upon their fellows. So long as innocent men can be pitted against each other, ready to cut each other's throats, so long as human beings stand ready to slaughter each other and to wallow in each other's blood for no per- sonal grievance, and because of no personal injury, so long will you and I still be living in an age of slavery, and so long will it be impossible to bring near the day of the brotherhood of man.
The American people are regarded and regard themselves, and I think properly so, as the world's most moral and most enlightened people, From my reading of history, they are, on the whole, the most moral and the most enlightened people that the world has seen. And yet I ask, what would the world think of you, what would the world think of me, as an American, if, for example, as a wage earner, out of the daily pay of, say, three dollars, we were to spend 72%, or, to be more exact, $2.16, to meet the consequential cost of fights of the past and for the purchase of swords and guns and pistols and ammunition to be worn while strutting about among our neighbors, in order to impress them with the thought that we are dangerous men to attack? What would the world think of us as individuals, I ask if, out of this daily pay of three dollars, we should retain but 84 cents to feed and to clothe and to lodge and educate ourselves, our wives, and our children ? And yet, my friends, that is precisely what we are doing. Do you know that, out of the annual income of this nation, so far back as 1908, out of six hundred million dollars of revenue, we expended over four hundred and twenty millions for past and for future wars ? For every dollar taken out of the pockets of the
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people in the way of federal taxes, we have spent for pensions and for war armaments just 72 cents. And yet, we regard ourselves as a most enlightened and a most progressive people.
If you and I were to substitute force for reason and for law, were to go out upon the streets of this commonwealth, or upon the streets of any other land, and for some real or fancied grievance war upon each other, the government upon whose territory this would happen would promptly and properly pounce upon and suppress us. And yet all the nations feel themselves at perfect liberty to do what they will not permit their own to do.
So long as the great evil of war is permitted to go on, civilized men cannot be called entirely sane. Sane men are guided by law and by reason, and not by force. Thank God, however, that sanity is gaining in the world. Thank God that war, the greatest of all evils, is being attacked by sane men the world over as no evil was ever before attacked. The world's sane and humanitarian forces are becoming speedily organized in all the corners of the earth, and are waging war against war so effectively that startling results are happening in wonderfully quick succession. So promising are these results, that, without pretending to be a prophet or even the son of a prophet, I venture the prediction that there are those within the sound of my voice tonight who are destined to see within their own time an era of international peace such as the world has never before seen.
Peace with foreign nations, my friends, is to be secured precisely as domestic peace is secured. The nations must, and in the near future will be compelled, to settle their disputes as you and I are compelled to settle our disputes, not by force, but by exercise of law and by peaceful methods. There must be, as there will be established, a court organized by all nations for all the nations. There must be, as there shall be created a supreme court of international justice. The peace conference at The Hague is the first step in this direction. Many things are happening to speed the movement of international peace. One of the greatest feeders of war in the past has been the national and the racial and religious prejudices, and hatred of man against man. Many modern tendencies are speedily tearing down the artificial walls erected in the past to keep men apart and to in- tensify this hatred and this ill will. Twentieth century means of communication, science, invention, international conventions and con- gresses, are all doing heroic service in making clear how much men of all races, men of all creeds, have in common. Unionism, for ex- ample, is another factor that is rendering most important aid in this direction. It was a trick, a trick of the rulers in the past, a trick of
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those high in power, to encourage resentment and hatred and ill will on the part of their subjects against the people of other races and of other nations. They encouraged this hatred and this ill will, re- alizing that in time of war, the great mass of the people will be all the more ready to respond to those high in power and to offer them- selves as food for the enemy's cannon. What is happening today ? Let us follow out the line of work engaged in by the trades unionists, and see its wonderful effects. For the first time in history, the wage earners, the men who earn their bread, not by the sweat of the other fellow's brow, but by the sweat of their own brows, have come to- gether in great international congresses. The Frenchman has dis- covered that his English fellow-worker was not so bad a fellow after all. and the Englishman has discovered that all the animosities that were aroused within him by those who had a purpose in doing so, against his German fellow-worker, were unfounded and unjust. And the German has discovered that the Italian, when you come into close contact with him, is a pretty decent sort of a chap. The Italian, too, has found out that his Belgian brother has precisely the same aims and the same hopes and the same ambitions that he has. They have all discovered that they have much, very much, in com- mon, and that their aims are precisely the same aims. They have learned to respect, if not to love, each other, and have returned to their homes from these international congresses with a different conception and a different notion of the spirit and the character of their fellow workers living under other zones and under other govern- ments. Today there is no other factor that is stronger and more anti- military than are the trades unionists of Europe and America. Those high in power in Europe today realize that it would be a great hazard on their part to call upon the wage earners to fight their fellow wage earners living under a different flag. It is this fear on the part of those high in European power as much as any other one thing, that has had a tremendous restraining influence on the great nations of Europe, and that has done its fullest work in maintaining the peace of the continent.
Never before in the world's history was there such a mutual de- pendence and inter-relation of one country with another as now. In- stead of the old cry, familiar to your ears and to mine. "Our country as against every other country," sane men, patriotic men, and wise men the world over are saying, "Our country as with every other country." To the despotic Czar of the Russias is due the credit of having taken the initial step to bring into life the first international peace congress at The Hague. To the President of the United States, is due the further credit for having taken the initiative in bringing
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about international arbitration on a most comprehensive scale. As the outcome of President Taft's splendid speech, delivered on December 3rd last, treaties were signed in Washington on August 3rd which makes that a red letter day in the history of international peace. It was on the 3rd of August that the representatives of the United States and England and France, three of the world's greatest and mightiest nations, joined hands in Washington in signing pledges to war against war. Those three countries, for the first time in all history, stand dedicated to the cause of international peace.
But the great work, after all, has but begun. The mission of this republic has been to establish in the world free government. How powerful has been its influence in this direction, in its brief ex- istence of but little over a hundred years, is evidenced by the fact that supreme political despotism has become practically a thing of the past. This republic has yet another great mission. It has the mission to perform to lead in the establishing, as a permanent con- dition, of a great international court of justice, where international disputes will be judicially settled as your disputes and mine are settled. The logical step to follow the creation of such an international court is the bringing into life of an international guard or police force, placed at the disposal of such an international court, to be used, if need be, to enforce its international decisions. This would mean, in the first place, the release the world over of millions of men from the world's armies and the world's navies, to become valuable pro- ducers of wealth, instead of mere consumers of wealth. It would mean the release of billions of dollars annually, to be expended for education and for public improvement, that would add vastly to the sum of human effort and of human happiness.
The dream of one decade often becomes the realization of the next. What our fathers dreamed about, you and I can help bring into reality. Arbitration is a great stride, a wonderful stride in advance of trial by steel and blood. Judicial settlement of disputes, which shall be accepted as final, is an advance over arbitration. The supreme achievement, therefore, must be a supreme court of international justice. The owning of man by man has happily become a thing of the past. Let the killing of man by man happily also become a thing of the dead past.
Victor Hugo, the great French writer, prophesied as early as 1849 that the only battlefield of the future will be the market opening to commerce and the human mind opening to ideas. God speed the day when that prophecy may be fully realized. God speed the day when
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the nations will turn their battleships into merchantmen, and their cannon into rails.
The world's most powerful executive is the world's opinion. It is your province and mine, to help create, by word and by pen and by deed, this overwhelming power, this world's public opinion. It is your province and mine to create a public opinion that will lead, for example, our senate at Washington, at the next session, to ratify the international peace treaty initiated by President Taft and signed on August 3rd last by the representatives of the three great powers, America, France, and England. Will you aid, as I hope to aid, in bringing this about, by sending the strongest possible letters to our own senators and to the senators of other states, calling upon them to perform that sacred duty to humanity, and to sign that treaty ?
May ours be the God-given privilege to aid in this glorious work of hastening the day when, in the inspired words of the ancient prophet of Judea, swords may be beaten into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, and war shall be no more.
THE FLAG AND WHAT IT STANDS FOR
By Edward H. Hart, Palace Hotel, San Francisco, September 14, 1911.
We have all listened with rapt attention and deep appreciation to the splendid and illuminating address of Colonel Weinstock. And we all join with him in the hope that America, having fulfilled great mis- sions in the past, may lead in the future in that great movement for the abolition of the greatest evil that afflicts humanity, the evil of war.
This meeting was designed primarily to commemorate what is known as "Peace Day," which occurs, as we are aware, on September 3rd. Falling this year upon a Sunday, a postponement was necessary, and it is perhaps a coincidence that the date chosen is the anniversary of the bombardment in 1814 by the British fleet of Fort McHenry, at which time Francis Scott Key, whose monument, recently restored, is one of the features of our beautiful Golden Gate Park, composed the poem, immediately set to music, entitled the "Star Spangled Banner." Except for that work, its author would never have been known beyond the small circle in which he lived and moved. And those soul-stirring lines, born in a moment of patriotic emotion, and which became the
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heritage of unborn and unnumbered generations of Americans, owed their existence to a momentary combination of entirely accidental circumstances and conditions. Indeed, it may be said that the history of every man is a calendar of straws. Collectively like the law of average underlying the great science of life underwriting, the human race may be moving, no doubt is moving, in one general direction, along certain fairly well defined lines of development. But individu- ally, man may be, frequently is, turned by a feather. Some great writer has said that had the nose of Cleopatra been shorter, Marc Anthony would not have lost the world. If the charms of Helen of Troy had been less alluring, ancient history would not have been made up, so largely as it is, of the description of deeds of valor performed in the Trojan War. Cromwell was on board a ship in the Thames, bound for America, when there came an order forbidding the ship to sail. And after that began his great career, which led him, step by step, to the proud position of Lord Protector of the British Common- wealth and the foremost sovereign of his time. The landing of a Dutch ship at Jamestown in 1619, with twenty Africans aboard who were sold into slavery, was the small initial step toward the greatest civil war in history. And in like manner, it was an accident that gave to the world the Star Spangled Banner. The darkest hour, as you all know, in the second war for independence, was upon the republic, and cast its somber gloom over the afflicted land. English troops, almost unopposed, had marched upon, burned, and sacked the capital of the nation. At this juncture, a prominent citizen of Maryland, a friend of Key, had been arrested by the British, taken from his home and placed a prisoner aboard one of the enemy's ships. Key, by permission of the President, had gone with one companion, under a flag of truce, to the British Admiral to ask for his friend's release. They arrived in the presence of the British upon the eve of the proposed bombard- ment of Fort McHenry, which alone defended, as you know, the important commercial city of Baltimore. After performing their mission, which was a seeming failure, they were not permitted to return to their friends, for fear they might, unwittingly or otherwise, communicate intelligence of the proposed attack, but were held aboard their own small craft during that lurid night, under the guns of the British, and were forced to witness the attempted demolition of the heroic defenses of the city. A vivid description is given us of the anxious vigil of Key and his companion. Alone, beneath the shining stars, they paced the deck of the ship. They watched the whirling, glowing, bursting bombs ; they saw the answering volleys from the fort. The day's descending sun had seen the broad stripes and the bright
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stars waving from the battlements of the fort, and, so long as shot answered shot during the night, they knew that the beloved banner of liberty still fluttered its proud defiance to the enemy. After mid- night the firing ceased. Gloom and hope held alternate sway within their hearts. They prayed for day. Yet when the first faint touches of the breaking dawn disclosed the gray outlines of the fort, they almost feared to look, for fear they would behold the cherished emblem of the free displaced by the hated flag of tyranny. Glorious light! For it revealed, still proudly streaming, the beauteous stars and stripes, ensign of the Republic, emblem of the eternal union.
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