President Benjamin Harrison Memorial Day ("Decoration Day") Remarks In 1891

Remarks During Decoration Day Ceremonies in Independence Hall, Philadelphia,
May 30, 1891:

Mr. Mayor, Comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, and Fellow-Citizens:

I esteem it a great pleasure to stand in this historic edifice, in this historic city, to take part to-day as a comrade of the Grand Army of the Republic in these instructive and interesting exercises, which have been instituted to keep alive in our hearts the memories of patriotic devotion and sacrifice. It is eminently appropriate that we should stand for a little before we go to the graves of our dead in this edifice where the foundation declarations of independence and of civil government were made and put into that course of development which has brought our nation to its present position of prosperity and of influence among the nations of the earth... I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day. I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did. We mourn for them as comrades who have departed, but we feel the glory of their dying and the glory of their achievement covers all our great country, and has set them in an imperishable roll of honor.

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