The Portland daily press., 1881-09-16
A Word
From a Southern Woman.
rMashinrton Post l

washington Post
The last good news from Long Branch is as
grateful to our hearts as last nights good ram
is to our gardens and corntields. And this is
saying more than wordsl Indeed, if the noble
sufferer there could only know how much SYM
pathy and solicitude he has wakened through
the South, could see the interest evinced in the
daily bulletins, and hear the prayers and good
wishes that are being made for him every
where, he could not but be cheered and COM
forted.
The homage of crowns is grateful and appro-
pirate now. To have kings aud emperors and
principalities and powers showing us that our
Nations Chief is this day the central interest
of the world, is an acknowledgment to be APP
preciated by President and people.
But we think the compliment the South is
paying is better than ali this. That the love
and sympathy now being elected from hearts
SO lately disaffected and disowned, is and al
ways will be to President Garfield, II we are
not much mistaken, wonder, pleasure and a
higher homage.
What grander satisfaction could he have
than the assurance that his sntferings have not
been in vain; that his blood spilled has actual
ly done more, in a quiet, Christian way, to CO.
mant broken Union than all that was poured
out upon our battlefelds; that his gentle pa
fence and heroic fortitude, and that of bis no.
BILE wife, through these two weary, wretched
months, have actually accomplished more to-
wards winning over stout aid rebellious hearts
to peace and good will, than all the expendi-
ture of our four years men and means and
measures!
Such laurels do not smell of blood, but are
the purest and grandest that can grace any
conqueror's bead, and might well make one
exclaim with the hero of Abraham's Heights:
Then die content"
But our President will not die, but live. we
trust, and every amendment to his constitu
ion is, we hope, to be guarantee of strong
er Union between our once discovered country.
Certainly time is the revolutoner OF revolu-
tions and of revolutionsts, and Providence has
way of putting things that can indeed make
u.s. with all our boosted calculations. look very
small. Six months ago, who would believe
that President Garfield could be a hero to the
Sonth? Six months agol And, by the way
we can make no more valuable use of the pres
emit situation than to learn from it one lesson
that this country wofully needs.
IT'S a lesson on our present vile system OF po-
litical prescription. In all the selfish struggle
that goes on here for place and power, there is
no more abominable practice than that of MAX
ing mans private character pay the price OF
his political disfavor 1t prevails to an out
rageous degree. If a man is in the wrong Ii. O.,
the opposing) side in politics. it is not allowa
BILE for him to be right on anything. 1t he is q
Democrat, he is a demon; if a Republican a
renegade, rascal! No denunciation is too Bit
ter. No SANDER too exaggerated.
We have the politicians and the political pa
pers to blame for much our prejudgment
and misjudgment of Mr. Garfield, and his
wounds should "plead like angels trumpet
tongued" against this most atrocious evil.
A SOUTHERN WOMAN.