be remembered."

It is especially gratifying for our comrades to meet in the State home of that hero, soldier and statesman, the chief founder and three times Commander-in-Chief of our Order, our beloved and lamented John A. Logan. A few weeks ago I stood on the old battlefield about Atlanta, and in viewing the panorama of that desperate conflict an ex-confederate officer pointed to the picture of Logan on horseback, flag in hand, leading the brilliant charge, and said:

"It was a grand sight, and nothing could resist such heroic valor. I shall never forget the dauntless bravery of that thrilling battle scene."

It is one of the wonders of our age how a city like this could have grown to such power and population within a narrow circle of a single life. The wife of Comrade Lenon, of Iowa, a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of Administration of the Grand Army of the Republic, was the second white child born on the site of the present Chicago, and she is comparatively well and in the full enjoyment of her faculties.

Your soil, Mr. Mayor, will forever be rich with the dear dust of the greatest and best ruler that ever graced and blest the world, that of the gentle, just, prudent, wise and commanding in his uncommon common sense, the heir of all the ages of manhood's richest product-plain, simple, noble and lofty-souled Abraham Lincoln-our martyr President and our greatest American. His life is our imperishable American monument of the greatest century in the history of all ages.

Department Commander Longenecker, of Illinois, in extending a welcome on behalf of the Grand Army of the Republic, said:

Commander-in Chief and Comrades:

I greet you as representative men of one of the grandest organizations the wor'd ever knew, and as not alone representing the Grand Army boys, but you are representative men of the people of your States as well. You are not only that but you are leaders. Twenty-four years of the thirty-two since 1868 Grand Army men have filled the Presidential chair. They have been Governors, Senators and Congressmen. They have been judges, lawyers and doctors. Comrades, you are not only leaders, but you are pushers.

Grand Army men have pushed themselves out into the far West and have built up towns and cities and opened up the land to agriculture until to-day the saying, Go west and grow up with the country, is resented by the stalwart Westerner because the country is full grown. Comrades, you have come to a State that has furnished to the Grand Army as true leaders as were ever elected to office. I call to mind General Palmer and General Stephen A. Hurlburt and that greatest volunteer general, John A. Logan; I call to mind. our old friend Lawler, who marched at the head of his Post yesterday, and Sexton, and while I do not intimate that they are greater than other comrades, the world never saw a better set of men than we have furnished you for Commanders-in-Chief. You are here in

a city destined to be the greatest in the Union, and in a State destined to be the the greatest one in the Union, with her four million people, shaking the very earth with her industrial tread, marching along the line to prosperity until it is almost beyond comprehension the strides that Illinois makes, and this State welcomes you and this city welcomes you. Go over to the City Hall and tell them that you own the town. We want you to feel at home, and in behalf of the Department of Illinois, with its twenty-four thousand comrades, I bid you thrice welcome.

Past Commander-in-Chief Louis Wagner responded as follows:

Department Commander of Illinois:

In the name of the Comrades here assembled, and as the senior Past Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, I thank you most cordially for this welcome to your Department.

When the Grand Army of the Republic gathers within the limits of the great State of Illinois, the visit becomes a family re-union. We return to the old homestead, the birthplace of our organization, and we felicitate ourselves upon our marvelous growth and rejoice in the hearty reception accorded us.

Nothing mars our anticipated enjoyment but the thought that the men to whose patriotism and foresight the Grand Army owes its existence, are not here to join in this grand gathering. They have been transferred from the army militant to the army triumphant, and we can only honor their memory, but if spirits ever re-visit this earth, theirs are with us now.

Dr. Stephenson, whose patriotic heart conceived and whose fertile brain devised the plan of our order; General Hurlburt, our first Commander-in-Chief; the brave and brilliant John A. Logan, who for three years after our permanent organization had chief command; Commander-in-Chief James A. Sexton, who but last year passed to the great beyond, and the living Lawler, all sons of Illinois, have made indelible impress upon the Grand Army. In accepting your invitation to hold our Thirty-fourth National Encampment with you, we honor ourselves, we express our love for the memories of the dead, and our respect for the living for their ever-continued devotion to the principles of our order.

These annual encampments have brought us into most of the prominent cities of this great country, and we have met with the heartiest hospitality, but I am sure that our second meeting in Chicago will show that nowhere in all this land does the veteran of the war for the suppression of the Rebellion find a warmer welcome than here. Your people always welcome the coming and speed the parting guest, but when that guest is one of the men who, in 1861-65, dared death for the flag, we know that nothing you have is too good to offer him. We know that we are welcome here, and we accept your tender of affection and regard to the full measure, satisfied that there is ample and to spare.

We gather, as we have done on thirty-three similar occasions, not to fight our battles over again, except figuratively, but to interchange the greetings of an exalted friendship and to counsel as to the means best adapted to emphasize the principles upon which the Grand Army of the Republic is founded: Fraternity with each other, Charity to the needy and Loyalty to the country.

Since the war in which we fought, and in which so many others died that the country might live, now and forever, one and inseparable, there have been other wars, and others may unfortunately follow; but surely none have been, or can be, fought for a more righteous cause, and every Comrade feels proud of his share in that conflict and in its glorious results.

And yet while of the past, we should not live in the past, nor for the past, but in the immediate living present. Let us remember that not only are we bound to defend the Nation, to honor its Constitution and to obey the laws of the land, but that we are also pledged to encourage honor and purity in public affairs.

A faithful adherence to the teachings of our Order will make the best Grand Army man the best citizen, and by daily putting into public and private practice these teachings, we shall extort even from our enemies the admission that we were not only ready to die, but that we also live for the principles that made us soldiers forty years ago.

Applying, in the past tense, the words of Abraham Lincoln, in his second annual message: "We cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance nor insignificance can spare us. The fiery trials through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. The way is plain-a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless."

Let the Grand Army of the Republic therefore be in the future, as it has been since its organization: For the dead a Tribute. For the living a Memory. For posterity an Emblem of Loyalty to the flag of our country.

Comrade Longenecker, again I thank you, and through you our Comrades of the Department of Illinois, for this cordial greeting.

JOURNAL

OF THE

Thirty-fourth National Encampment

GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC.

The Thirty-fourth Annual Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic convened at Studebaker Hall, in Chicago, at 10 o'clock A. M., August 29, 1900, and was opened in due form.

The Chaplain-in-Chief, Rev Jacob L. Grimm, invoked the Divine blessing.

The hall of the Encampment was in charge of the following named comrades:

Officers of the Day: W. H. Bean, Post 5, Chicago; E. M. Edgerton, Post 444, Chicago.

Officers of the Guard: G. W. G. Estover, Post 445, Chicago; Z. P. Hotchkiss, Post 615, Oak Park.

Guard: E. H. Kimberley, Post 28, Chicago; W. H. Doherty, Post 28; Jacob M. Hoyt, Post 445; E. A. Stone, Post 147, Department of Indiana; John M. F. Spitler, Post 107, Department of Michigan; F. J. Collins, Post 45, Springfield, Ohio; A. D. Edgewerth, Post 28, Chicago.

The Adjutant General called the roll of the officers of the Encampment.