135. Fighting Done!—Work Begun!
The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children, and to the girls they loved—they went back to the fields, the shops and mines. They had not been demoralized. They had been ennobled. They were as honest in peace as they had been brave in war. Mocking at poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They said: "We saved the nation's life, and what is life without honor?" They worked and wrought with all of labor's sons, that every pledge the nation gave should be redeemed. And their great leader, having put a shining hand of friendship—a girdle of clasped and happy hands—around the globe, comes home and finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam of gold.
136. Manhood worth more than Gold
We say in this country manhood is worth more than gold. We say in this country that without liberty the Nation is not worth preserving. I appeal to every laboring man, and I ask him, "Is there another country on this globe where you can have your equal rights with others?" Now, then, in every country, no matter how good it is, and no matter how bad it is—in every country there is something worth preserving, and there is something that ought to be destroyed. Now recollect that every voter is in his own right a king; every voter in this country wears a crown; every voter in this country has in his hands the scepter of authority; and every voter, poor and rich, wears the purple of authority alike. Recollect it; and the man that will sell his vote is the man that abdicates the American throne.
137. Grander than Greek or Roman.
Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the soldiers of the republic, with patriotism as taintless as the air, battled for the rights of others; for the nobility of labor; fought that mothers might own their babes; that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of patient toil, and that our country should not be a many-headed monster made of warring States, but a Nation, sovereign, great and free. Blood was water; money, leaves, and life was common air until one flag floated over a republic without a master and without a slave.