Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1878-11-23

H u al AuOW81y
Il will doubtless sound anomalous
to our readers to hear us speak of .
holocaust that augurs Of good. In
deed, abnormal and paradoxical as
it may seem, We undertake TO say
that pestilence has done what the
ripest wisdom Of astute diplomatism
and craftsmanship has utterly failed
to do. The late ravages Ct the yell
low fever have done more. through
the iuscrutable providence of God,
to remove the long-existing estrange-
ment between the North and South,
than a hundred treaties or a thous-
and iron-clads could have done, in II
term of years. The great hiatus,
fearful in its details, which has SO
long separated heart from heart,
sympathy from sympathy and inter-
est from interest, has been bridged
by the Angels OF Mercy; q solid
causeway of human affection spans
the once dubious moat, and the ma
ton breathes easier again. The
money we have sent from the East and
West, CLEANED from every city, town
and hamlet, and made up as we'll
from the wiaow's mite as the bank
check of the millionaire, this avail
anche of charity has broken up the
fountains of the deep and told them,
for the hundredth time, the pleasant
story of peace and good will among
men. Nor have they misconstrued
the burden of our words, for all
hearts are linguists in the dialects
of love. Were it possible to shed
over again the northern blood which
drenched and permeated southern
soil, it would be as freely shed for
one section of our beloved Union as
another. But we will let them tell
their own story. In the following
extract from the Memphis appeal,
the late plague is exalted to the
glorious estate of a peacemaker.
Listen to the impassioned eloquence
Of soul-felt gratitude:
While all that is said is true ofthe pluck
and endurance Of tho southern people un.
der the prOvOcation OF war, pestilence and
| famine, there is something to be said for
our brethren of the north, whose con-
stancy, steadiness and devotion to their
cause, bravery and persistence in battle
taxed all their energies and skill and
| resources unequaled, have few parallels
in history. To no other people could we
of the South have surrendered. Magqan-
imous on the field SO tiercely contested,
despite the hazards OF political disputes,
| they have many times since April, 1865,
extended US the right hand OF fellowship
full up and flowing over with good gifts,
the generous tender of the humiliation
of charity. The same men who led the
armies of the North, the same journalists
who inspired those armies, and the same
religious teachers, and the same noble,
heroic woman who originated and sus-
tanned. amid the heat ct battle and the eX-
element of sometimes perilOus popular
connections, the grandest beneficence
ever conceived Of for the relief of SOL
diers in the field, have been foremost
in the heaven-sent work OF our relief i'm
weeks that are the dreariest in our calen-
dar. Unwearied in their tasks, as did
Joseph with his brethren, they have filled
our sacks to overfiowing many, many
times. and yet they are lopt done. From
far Oregon and Montana to Vermont !;
from villages, towns and cities of all the
| busy northern States from the miners
camp, the newsboy's home; from the
banker and the farmer, the professor and
| the mechanic; from all classes of that sec.
ton OF our country where American in
genuity has found its largest field of CON-
quest. and whose industries challenge the
world in vain for a comparison--fro this
seat OF q great industrial population, UNI
matched by any other on tile earth, the
| gifts of an Intelligent help and a touching
sympathy have come, saving many thous-
| andS of our stricken ones from death and
| lighting our dreary pathway with the
light Of an enduring brotherly love.
Blood is thicker than water" or the
same race, speaking the same tongue, the
heirs of the same glorious country, no
memories Of sectional divisions, OF pOliti-
cal animosities or of civil war have been
allowed to stay the steady flow of the
| beautiOus stream that has brought us,
with all else, the assurance that we are
one people in fact as we'll as in name, and
that beyond the frOth and fuss of politics
and the deceits and dangers of denago-
CUES, the popular heart il safe, yielding
only Of its fullness when challenged in the
cause of humanity and brothers lives are
~ m