A Lewiston Evening Journal editorial for Memorial Day, 1870

If there ought to be one day in the year so sacred, so uncontaminated by every current interest and influence as to be peculiar while we cherish and observe it, it is that on which the relatives and friends and a grateful community of people go out to lay offerings of flowers upon the graves of those who died for the perpetual union of these States.

We have no similar day in our calendar. All the associations are those of affection, sorrow and gratitude. No duty could be more wholly one of worship that they which directs our loving hearts, that lives off the precious memories, to lay offering of pure flowers on the graves of the dead; and no dead can well be consecrate to living recollection than they who gave life for country.

Let it be a day of flowers, of tears, of swelling hearts, of sweet memories. Let it be kept as a secret thought is kept, close to the soul.

So, on next Monday, let Memorial Service be observed in this spirit.