LeMars Semi-Weekly Sentinel Tuesday, May 26, 1908
HONOR TO VETERANS MEMORIAL SERVICES HELD FOR OLD SOLDIERS CHIEF VALUE IS GOOD CITIZENSHIP
Rev. Thiel Points Out that Good Institutions Must Be Conserved While Influences Which Tend Toward Evil Must be Combatted by Good Citizens.
At the opera house on Sunday morning Memorial Day services were held under the auspices of Mower Post, G. A. R. and the W. R. C. in spite of the inclement weather, a large number were present. The veterans of the post and the ladies of the Relief Corps attended in a body and the fireman of the city turned out in uniform and marched from their hall to the opera house. Memories of the days of ’61 were recalled and there were but few who did not pay a tribute in thought to the valiant dead and the honorable survivors of that most historical time. The opera house was draped with the national colors and patriotic music was sung in honor of the veterans. A feature of the occasion was the singing of the Imperial Quartet, which rendered some excellent selections. The invocation was given by Rev. Karl Kaupp. Rev. A. F. Bittner read the scripture lesson and Rev. C. F. Fisher offered prayer. The sermon for the day was preached by Rev. F. H. Thiel, pastor of the German Methodist church. Mr. Thiel took for his text the words contained in Acts 22:28 - “And the chief captain answered, with a great sum obtained I, this freedom, and Paul said, “but I was free born.” The speaker said in part: Citizenship especially in a civilized and christian people is one of the greatest blessings which God has given to man. It would be utterly impossible to imagine the condition of the human race if God had not endowed it with the faculty of self government through which states and nations have been founded and freedom has been secured to the individual. We may conceive of the great value of citizenship when we consider for a moment what people will do to preserve citizenship. Thus the chief captain of our text paid a great sum for the same. Paul was born a citizen. The history of our glorious United States is but the history of attaining and preserving citizenship. We are gathered here today in memory of the great rebellion which swept over our land. We have with us the honorable citizens of the Civil war, the comrades in blue, members of the Grand Army of the Republic. Why was it they left home and father and mother or wife and son and daughter, hurrying to the battlefields of the South? Was it because of the glory of war? No! But was that freedom of citizenship might be given our enslaved people. In reference to our war with Spain, I wish to say that the foremost motive and the ultimate outcome of that war were none other but to give to oppressed people the freedom of citizenship. Thus great prices have been paid for citizenship and it is becoming us as citizens in a great and glorious nation that we prize our citizenship highly and lived as it is becoming the citizens of the United States. It therefore becomes our duty to live up to the principles upon which our freedom of citizenship rests; to obey the laws our our land; to suppress and make the more noneffective institutions and influences that make for bad and to give support to such institutions that tend to uplift the people and perpetuate our freedom. First it becomes us to live up to the principals upon which our freedom of citizenship rests. They are the equal right to life and liberty to all men, the right to acquire property; the right to have access to courts of justice and the freedom to pursue and obtain happiness. These rights must be restricted in order that they do not infringe on the public good. Two great principles not highly enough esteemed, are honestly and diligence. We are living in an age which underestimates these principles. There is a very pronounced tendency in our land to make money without honest diligence. When God made man he gave him the Garden of Eden to cultivate and commanded him to have dominion over the world. Thus man could not do without work, and when man made the attempt to set aside God’s plan, God cursed the earth and said to man, “In the sweat of thy brow, shall thou eat thy bread.” Thus forcing diligence upon man that he might prolong his life, we see today how people try to avoid toil and work, it would seem as if work were a disgrace. Honest work is no disgrace to any man. We need to be reminded that work was instituted by God and the evasion of honest toil must finally result in the ruin of our national welfare.”
The speaker animadverted strongly on the evils of the pool hall and gambling and their bad effects on the young, and scourged the liquor traffic and the saloon, and said the South had done more than the North to suppress the traffic.
In concluding, the speaker said the people must support institutions which tend to uplift men and of these three are chief; our public school system, our courts of Justice and the church.
The services closed with the singing of “America” by the audience and the pronunciation of the benediction.
~Submitted for posting by volunteer, Linda Ziemann (5/20/2025)
