The G. A. R. Were Entertained

  Women's Auxiliary provide the Annual Banquet.

  Dr. Breakey reported on annual encampment and gave interesting account of his trip to California.

  The Woman's Relief Corps entertained G. A. R. Post Monday evening in Odd Fellows' hall, and the men who had fought side by side sat down in peace together at a bounteous supper prepared by their auxiliary.  About sixty were present who, after the coffee cups were drained, circled around the booths and enjoyed a most entertaining program.

  Miss Pate, a second year student from Adrian, recited with much artistic ability "Tabitha Primrose on Woman's Rights", "The Party" by Dunbar, "Why He Didn't Succeed," and "The Sermon," which were all received with flattering applause.

  Miss D. Barry performed that interesting feat of playing a mouth organ and piano at the same time and doing it well. And Prof. Sage, a comrade 82 years old, sang the songs of the evening with a strength and clearness and sympathy of tone that was good to hear.

  "I have come from the Mountain from my old native state" rang true and "Then I sighed for the days that never will come back" was full of sympathy.

  A paper was read by Dr. Breakey on his trip to California and the thirty-seventh anniversary of the G. A. R. encampment held there in August which he said he cut short because the newspapers had allowed him only a report of the convention. The paper was of exceeding interest and brought picturesquely before his hearers southwest California with its flowers, its fruit gardens, its artificial irrigation, its melons, its strawberries, even now in season, the seventeen mile drive along the Pacific coast where McKinley had gone before him, the same table where McKinley ate, the rivers and the glass bottomed boats in which you rode over the tops of beautiful vegetable gardens, or sea urchins and ocean wonders.

  Then there was the feel of the earthquake that Dr. Breakey described. When sitting in his room with his feet at the American angle, he felt a mighty quaking as though some monster giant had hold of the house, squeezing and shaking it till it shook on its foundations. And San Francisco, the point of departure for the Orient, with its light and brilliance and welcome of the boys of '61. At the veterans' parade there were over 100,000 people among the throng. At the twentieth encampment, in 1886, it was "Hail!" At the thirty-seventh encampment, 1903, it was "Farewell"- a long farewell, for the army who went hither will find the journey too long to make that trip again. All the papers in San Francisco were filled with this sentiment that the Grand Army of the Republic would go that way no more.

  It was most effectively told how the Pennsylvania regiments marched in parade, carrying their 30 flags, so torn and tattered that they could not be unfurled - borne once more by the men who carried them on many a long line of weary march.

  Dr. Breakey spoke of the Woman's Relief Corps, how in 1890 it numbered 400,489; in 1878, 31,000; in 1902, 263,745, showing by this how the number is gradually growing less. He gave the figures $2,486,152 as the amount spent in the relief work since the auxiliary had organized, twenty one years ago.

  In closing, Dr. Breakey spoke words of encouragement to the comrades bere. Though an apparently insignificant organization here, remember that we are a part of this magnificent body that filled the beautiful city of San Francisco, and this organization is providing for its perpetuation, by the Sons of Veterans, who shall carry on the work after the Army of the Republic has taken its last march.

  A vote of thanks was extended to Dr. Breakey for his excellent paper, after which Mr. Sage sang "When Our Boys Came Home." The words of the song he once found in a newspaper and set to his own music. It was an appropriate close to this evening's reunion of the boys that had come home, who stood beside their wives in welcome again while the commander gave the order "Comrades, salute!"