REMARKS OF THE PRESIDING OFFICER, LIEUTENANT COLONEL CUTCHINS
(Introducing Captain Barksdale)
It is a beautiful and an inspiring thought that the first assembly of the
alumni of the University of Virginia, returning to celebrate the completion
of Alma Mater's one hundred years of service to State and Nation, should
be for the purpose of doing honor to, and perpetuating the memory of, those
former students of the University who gave their lives in order that the
ideals for which their Alma Mater always had stood might endure, and who,
by their death, exemplified the daily teachings and the loftiest traditions of
this University.
No graver charge can be lodged against any country than that it is ungrateful
to those who have fallen in its defense, or neglectful of the obligation
to perpetuate their memory. That the names of those immortal sons of
Virginia who willingly have given their lives in order that that civilization,
for which the University of Virginia has stood for a century, might be perpetuated
for unnumbered centuries yet to come, shall not go unrecorded and
unhonored, is due to the zeal, the loyalty and the patriotism of the classes
of 1918, 1919, 1920, and of the Seven Society. Those classes and that
society have earned not only the thanks of the great body of the alumni,
but they have earned as well the thanks of the countless thousands of Virginia
students who in the years that are to come will walk these paths, and,
walking here, will stop to read the names of that immortal company, and,
reading, will be inspired to go forth and so conduct themselves in the world
of men that the cause of civilization may be advanced, and that they too,
in time, may merit and win the thanks of Alma Mater.
One indeed treads upon sacred ground when one attempts to interpret
to the living the voices or the wishes of those who have passed beyond, but
I make bold to say that if that silent company who are to-day bivouacked
"on fame's eternal camping ground" could give expression to their sentiments,
they would bid me say that it is a source of satisfaction to them that
this Tablet Memorial is to be presented in their honor by one who himself
has inhaled the smoke of battle, one who himself has engaged in hand to
hand conflict with the foe, and one who has borne the seemingly endless
vigil of the long nights before the days of battle.
That my old comrade of the 29th Division, who will present this beautiful
tablet to-day, meets fully those requirements I personally can testify.
Nor need I give personal testimony, for the government of the United States
has recognized that fact officially, by awarding him the Distinguished Service
Cross for three separate acts of exceptional gallantry on three different
days of battle.
It is therefore with much pleasure that I present Captain Alfred Dickinson
Barksdale, who now will present this Tablet Memorial to the University
of Virginia.
