ned in no unstinted measure. But two months ago
the flagship of Admiral Dewey steamed slowly into the battle line
at Manila. As she passed the British flagship Immortalite its band
rang out the inspiring air 'See the Conquering Hero Comes,' and as
the gorgeous ensign of the republic was flung to the breeze at the
peak of the Olympia there now came thrilling o'er the waters from
our kinsmen's ship the martial strains of the 'Star Spangled Banner.'

"Finally, when our gallant seamen, reposing in fancied security in
the scorching blast of the treacherous explosion were cruelly and
remorselessly slain, and calm investigation had developed the truth,
we had been despicable on the historic page had we not appealed to the
god of battle for retribution. The pious rage of seventy millions of
people cried aloud to heaven for the piteous agony, for the shameful
slaughter of our brethren. Our noble navy was swiftly speeding to its
duty. Poetic genius bodied forth the spirit of our gallant seamen as
the mighty ships sped on their way.

"Let the waters of the orient as they moan through the shell-riven
wrecks at Cavite, the booming waves of the Caribbean as fathoms
deep it sweeps over Pluton and Furor and breaks into spray on the
shapeless and fire-distorted steel of Vizcaya and Oquendo, tell how
the navy has paid our debt to Spain. Nor is the renown which crowns
the standards of our army one whit less glorious. Nothing in the
lucid page of Thucydides nor in the terse commentaries of Caesar,
nothing in the vivid narrative of Napier or the glowing battle scenes
of Allison, can surpass the story how, spurning the chapparal and the
barbed wire, pressing their rifles to their throbbing hearts, toiling
up the heights, and all the while the machine guns and the Mausers
mowing the jungle as if with a mighty reaper, on and yet right on,
they won the fiery crests, and Santiago fell. Well may we exclaim
with the royal poet of Israel:

"'Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm hath gotten him the victory.'

"America! Humane in the hour of triumph, gentle to the vanquished,
grateful to the Lord of Hosts, a reunited people forever:

"'Great people. As the sands shalt thou become;
Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade
The multitudinous earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.'"

The band burst into the strains of "Dixie" in honor of the Southern
birth of Judge Speer,