Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-10-31
THE SOUTHERN COLONEL.
A Pathetic Relic Of Ante.Bellum Days

From the Atlanta (Ga) Constitution.
. One of the most amusing and yet pathetic
figures sometimes met in our daily walks Is the
colonel He requires no introduction to the
reader. The colonel was in full bloom In the
height of our ante-bellum civilization. and he
fingers with us yet, in the sere and yellow Leaf,
perhaps but still martial-looking, dignified
and courteous as ever. In these degenerate
days the colonel is not at his best in the hurly.
burly OF large city. He is too old to rise
superior to an unfavorable environment. The
fippant youngsters who control affairs in the
cities confuse him. He knows that he is far
a an OF them in wisdom and experience. but
ne knows, too tnat they regard him as an old
FOSSIL, relic of the Silurian period, man who
q, mas lost his grip Sometimes the old gentle.
to admit that the younger men are right But
this feeling of depression soon passes AWAY
and Th his seifconscousness reasserts itself
acquainted with him in the country town
where he lives, and where his father and grand
father lived before him. The good people
around him do not sneer at him as an old fogy
They know him to be fully as wide-awake and
enterprislng as his two friends, the judge and
tne squire, and what more could be desired?
In his big white house with the colorado
around it, he dispenses a hearty hospitality,
i has no only 9S circumstances over which he
devoted to him, and the children for miles
around and all the women in the country, look
up to him with enthusiastic admiration. He
mas no enemies, and it Is generally admitted
tnat his proper place is in Congress. When
these loyal constituents are a,ked why they do
not send him, the invarable reply is, "WelI
you see he is not an available man" AS pre-
clsely The same state of feeling seems TO exist
throughout the district. the stranger cannot
man.
It is violating no confidence to say that the
colonel Is in debt Every acre of his land is
mortgaged and he pays high interest. He buys
his household and plantation supplies on time
at fabulous prices. When the cotton season
ODD
we'll as he can, for he is the soul Of honor, but
there is always a heavy balance left still owing.
next year. But the next year brings q like re-
suit. In fact it las been so ever since the war.
and there is no prospect of a change. In his
brighter moments the colonel says that he will
pull through all right. Extensive farming,
peach orchards, and new railroad cutting
through his plantation, will soon bring him
even with the world. In the meantime, if he has
40 money, he still has sufficient credit. So the
outlook is not altogether dark.
Az times, however, the old fellow is down.
rlgnt blue. couple OF decades ago he was sat
ished that when he got through the reconstruc-
tion period he would be all right Next he
booked to- democratic state government to
bring flush times. Then he decided that it
would take national democratic administra-
ton TO make him prosperous. Occasionally he
thinks his misfOrtunes are due to demoraized
labor system. Sitting in the shade of the trees
around the court house, he frequently says:
As soon as the Niger gets an education he
wants TO go to preaching. He won't split rails
He wants to live in town. tell you, gentle
1
has robbed us of our laborers and turned horde
OF educated Migrants upon the country to live
without work and eat up our substance" 1t is
useless 10 argue with the colonel on this point.
de has decided views and stands up for them
In regard to other matters he has ideas,
plenty OF them, but they are mixed. He oc-
cupies an anomalous posi- ton, standing be-
tween the past and the present, without being
fully Identified with either. He has seen the
battle, but he has been too bewildered and too
sad to rock the cradle of the new civilization.
ASKED ossys in states dsx
BY E SIanR R0 ssht Ss wss th he
the war the colonel frequently told his fellow
citizens that they need not fear certain federal
legislation, as it was clearly unconstitutional.
and were quietly enforced. Gradually the old
gentleman ceased his constitutional lectures
politician. ION, anything is constitutional
when there is q majority in favor of it,
piece of parchment written a hundred years
ago is not going to stop men when they see
their way clear to securing big appropria-
ton"
ais there a hell ?" was the question asked
one day in a theological discussion. "There
was before the war; said the colonel "but now
believe it is sheol whatever that might be-
And yet the old man is, in the main, sweet
tempered under reverses and disappointment.
The new men who have pushed their way to
the front he would like to advise md instruct,
II they would only listen to him. Not long ago
he wrote an elaborate article, entitled "a Voice
from the Sentinel on the Watchtower." 1t was
hve columns long and signed PRO Bono Pub
lico." 1t would doubtless have created an i'm
mense sensation and purified the politics of the
country, but unfortu nately, the editor to whom
1t was sent lost it, and the colonel has never
found time to rewrite it. In various other
ways he shows that he is not hostile to
the progress of the age. But he keeps out
of the swim. He is more of spectator
than an actor in the busy life of the
grows whittier, and his eyes are dim, but as
kindly as of yore. He cannot be with us much
longer and when he leaves US he will be missed
1t will then be recollected that he bore himself
manfully in the most tremendous period of our
history. The shock and the utter wreck of de-
feat came upon him at an age when he no
lions, some of them unjust and mOnstrOus con-
fronted him. He could not unlearn the lessons
all, it would be a cruel judgment to write him
down as failure. Let us think of him as SOL
al flor 4 he nif