As I came up the street nothing pleased me as much as the sight of the school-children drawn up alongside the line of march. Remember that we shall leave this country in the hands of the children of to-day, and that the American of to-morrow will be what we train the boy or girl to be. If the children are not well educated, if they are not brought up as they should be, the State will go down. We of this generation have received a splendid heritage from you men of the years of ’60 to ’65. Honor to us if we treat your great deeds as spurring us onward; and shame to us if we treat your great deeds as excuses for our own idleness or folly. When I speak of education I do not mean only education in intelligence. That counts tremendously; but education in character counts more. It is character that determines the Nation’s progress in the long run. In the organizations of veterans after the Civil War each hails the other as comrade. It makes no difference whether the man was a lieutenant-general or whether he was the youngest recruit that served at the very end of the war. All that is asked is, did he do his duty in the place in which he was. If he did, you are for him. If he did not, you have no comradeship with him. I ask that the same lesson that you of the Civil War applied practically in your own persons during and since that war be applied by the rest of us in civil life. I ask that we scorn alike the base arrogance of the rich man who would look down on his poorer brother and the equally base envy of the poor man who would hate his richer brother; and that you apply to every citizen of this Republic just this one test—the test that gauges his worth as a man. Does he do his duty fairly by himself, his family, his neighbor, and the State and the Nation? If he does, be for him, whether he is rich or poor, because if you do not you are recreant in the spirit of Americanism. REMARKS ON BEING PRESENTED WITH TWO CONFEDERATE BADGES, AT BIRMINGHAM, ALA., OCTOBER 24, 1905 _Ladies; General_: I accept the two badges in the spirit in which they are offered; for your spirit here is that we are now indeed and forever reunited under the flag of the indissoluble Union; and that henceforth the only rivalry between the man whose father fought in the Union army and the man whose father fought in the Confederate army will be the generous rivalry of seeing who can do most for our common country. AT CITY PARK, LITTLE ROCK, ARK., OCTOBER 25, 1905 _Governor; Judge Trieber, and you, My Fellow-Citizens_: