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One noticeable feature and I think a commendable one that the Raines all vote the Democratic ticket. While I do not desire or intend to inject into this pleasant occasion any personal or partisan politics, I must say that it is a praise worthy fact that you Raines have always been true to the best interest of your country, and when the Civil War of 1861-65 came up, every Raines was in line with his home people and I see before me today Alsey Raines and Columbus Raines, two valiant soldiers of the Lost Cause, who followed the wizard of the saddle, Gen. N. B. Forrest through all of the hard fought battles of the Lost Cause.
No female member of the Raines family ever had the slightest tint or stain upon her character. Therefore I feel encouraged to congratulate you who have such noble blood coursing through your veins, hoping that, reflecting upon these facts, you will be encouraged to so live that you will maintain unsullied and unstained the name of your ancestors.
To you gentlemen of this family from Texas, Arkansas, and elsewhere who have emigrated to other states, I cherish the hope that you have maintained the good name so well deserved by your relatives here and I am sure that you are not ashamed of you relatives and friends here assembled.
Uncle Jack Raines of Texas, here before me, left this county 57 years ago, he and I have not met since we were boys, but he looks somewhat like his brother, W. H. Raines, deceased, who was my near neighbor and bosom friend, whose memory we all revere. Another member of the same family of Raines, a half-brother of the two above named, Col. J. M. Raines of Fordyce Ark., is with us today and one strange feature of this reunion is that these two men, although being half-brothers, have never met until this morning. I congratulate you members of the Raines family upon the conception and carrying out this idea of a family reunion and I cherish the hope it will not be the last one. However, we are forcefully reminded that upon all things earthly, decrepitude, death and decay are indelibly written.
When I turn my head to the left and look at that burnt tree and heap of ashes and ruins where the house of Uncle Alsie and Aunt Martha recently burned up, together with all their earthly possessions, we are forcefully reminded that the Raines like all others are subject to and victims of saddness, sorrow, sickness and disappointment in this life and when we look just over on yonder hill scarcely a quarter of a mile away we see what is known all over this country as the Raines graveyard in whose sacred precints rests the mortal remains of many who are near and dear to us by the ties of affinity and consanguinity and while we behold these precious little mounds, very sacred in our memories and cherish the memory and the good deeds of those who occupy the silent city of the dead we are reminded that we too shall ere long go hence, therefore I urge you and each of you to so live that when that hour shall arrive and our bodies are laid away in the tomb along beside those whom we love and cherish that our spirits will bask in the sunlight of Eternal bliss and glory.
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