After making all necessary discount and rebate because of faults and infirmities, there is enough yet remaining of solid and essential excellence in the citizens of every State in this nation that they can afford to have the honest truth told about themselves.

Is the sun less glorious because there are spots on the sun?
Is the moon less beautiful because the man in the moon does not wear a handsome face?
On the late Fourth of July there was a rallying of the clans of the veterans--the men in blue and the men in gray--on the field of Gettysburg, to commemorate the battle they fought twenty-five years before, and to do honor to the bravery displayed by each man in fighting for what he honestly thought to be the right.

This was as it should be.

But there ought to be the celebration of another battle--it ought to be, even though it may never occur--that should never be forgotten.

In that battle there was no dreadful carnage as on the battlefield of Gettysburg; there were no desperate charges made by cavalry and infantry; there was no heroic courage displayed under the pitiless peltings of a deadly hail of shot and shell; there were no great generals of national reputation in command, but humble men unknown to fame, in the final result came together, and with honest speech said, "We will shake hands and be friends.