Monday, May 25, 2026 is Memorial Day, a day where our nation pauses to honor those who gave their life in defense of their country. This quote from then Congressman James A Garfield was published in a Best of the Web column this week, authored by James Freeman, Assistant Editorial Page Editor of the Wall Street Journal.  I hope you enjoy the inspiring words of Congressman (and later President) Garfield.

…[I]n 1868, Arlington [National Cemetery] had just started to become a famous synonym for honor. Congressman Garfield, the former Civil War general, knew well the horrors that had necessitated all those white markers. He had led troops into the almost unimaginable carnage of Shiloh and Chickamauga. Here’s an excerpt of Garfield’s remarks:

I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion. If silence is ever golden, it must be here, beside the graves of fifteen thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung. With words we make promises, plight faith, praise virtue. Promises may not be kept; plighted faith may be broken; and vaunted virtue be only the cunning mask of vice. We do not know one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke; but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue.

For the noblest man that lives, there still remains a conflict. He must still withstand the assaults of time and fortune, must still be assailed with temptations, before which lofty natures have fallen; but with these the conflict ended, the victory was won, when death stamped on them the great seal of heroic character, and closed a record which years can never blot.

I know of nothing more appropriate on this occasion than to inquire what brought these men here… Eight years ago this was the most unwarlike nation of the earth. For nearly fifty years no spot in any of these states had been the scene of battle. Thirty millions of people had an army of less than ten thousand men. The faith of our people in the stability and permanence of their institutions was like their faith in the eternal course of nature. Peace, liberty, and personal security were blessings as common and universal as sunshine and showers and fruitful seasons; and all sprang from a single source, the old American principle that all owe due submission and obedience to the lawfully expressed will of the majority. This is not one of the doctrines of our political system—it is the system itself. It is our political firmament, in which all other truths are set, as stars in Heaven. It is the encasing air, the breath of the Nation’s life. Against this principle the whole weight of the rebellion was thrown…

The Nation was summoned to arms by every high motive which can inspire men… Each for himself gathered up the cherished purposes of life—its aims and ambitions, its dearest affections—and flung all, with life itself, into the scale of battle.

We began the war for the Union alone; but we had not gone far into its darkness before a new element was added to the conflict, which filled the army and the nation with cheerful but intense religious enthusiasm. In lessons that could not be misunderstood, the Nation was taught that God had linked to our own, the destiny of an enslaved race- that their liberty and our Union were indeed “one and inseparable.”…

What other spot so fitting for their last resting place as this under the shadow of the Capitol saved by their valor? Here, where the grim edge of battle joined; here, where all the hope and fear and agony of their country centered; here let them rest, asleep on the Nation’s heart, entombed in the Nation’s love!

… This will be forever the sacred mountain of our Capital. Here is our temple; its pavement is the sepulcher of heroic hearts; its dome, the bending heaven; its altar candles, the watching stars.

Brennan Mitchell Joins Verrado Rotary

Brennan Mitchell was welcomed to the club by President Holly, who was also his sponsor.  Brennan is a mortgage banker active in our community and has already spoken to our club. He is married to Emily and they recently welcomed a baby daughter, their first child. Welcome to Rotary Brennan, we are glad you can now call Verrado Rotary “your club”.  (NOTE, this is a correction of last week's post where Brennan's surname was presented incorrectly, I regret the error)