San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-07-12
MAKE A CONFEDERATE HOME.

the circular published.yesterday, over
the signature of Governor Sui Ross
and eleven others, among them Judge
Rector, 50 well known to the republic
cans of this state, pleading for the
n ecessary funds to establish and
maintain home for manned and des-
titute confederate soldiers in this state.
This plea should be needed and heed
ed promptly. 1t is not creditable to
a great state like Texas that her sons,
called to battle by the voice of the
state, no matter how unwisely or I'M
warrantably called-it is not credit
able to her that having called her
sons to battle she should refuse to aid
and care for those whom the fortunes
of her wars have disabled. When
Texas took the responsibility Of seced-
ing from the union she assumed all
the responsibilities arising from that
act. Among these responsibilities
was that of standing to and abiding
by the issue OF that movement. This
included the bearing of whatever dis
abilities might be inflicted upon her
in an unsuccessful struggle, and it
it also included, morally, the obliga-
ton to care for those who by virtue
of obeying her call to arms were rem
dered incapable of caring for them
selves. No amount Of sophistry can
remove the moral obligation of those
who carried this state into secession
to give every last dollar they can
spare, if need be, to main tain decent
home for the soldiers who today are
manned and disabled because of their
efforts to maintain that war for seces-
sion. Let these men, the aiders and
abettors of the secession of Texas from
the union, come to the front and show
their hands in this movement for
home. Some of them
have already done so. More of them
have not. There is not loyal union
soldier in the state that will not help,
but the initiatory must come from the
monied men of the confederacy. When
the north was appealed to for aid and
was ready to respond literally, the
southern brigadier opened fire in
the rear and prevented the north
from carrying out its almost
completed plans for putting the
confederate home in Texas upon a
solid foundation. The men who took
no part in that fool movement, en-
gineered by O'Grady of Atlanta for
the purpose of making capital for a
confederate home in Georgia, are not
responsible for those who did, but it
is absolutely of the first Importance
that this movement be from within
the confederate ranks. There is not
a loyal union soldier in Texas no mat
ter from what state he may hail who
will not willingly give to the aid and
maintenance OF this home. There is
no feeling of animosity remaining.
There is a feeling that, as the press
have decried the raising of funds for
this home in the north as an insult to
the south, the movement should be
made in Texas by those who were
participators in the late struggle on
the side of the south. Let those who
cast their lot with the confederate
cause during the late war and parti-
cularly those who aided in carrying
Texas out of the union, let these men
come to the front and the union men
and the union soldiers of whom there
are today thousands in Texas will
not STAY behind ia this work of neces-
sity. 1t is a burning shame that this
state has left her old veterans out in
the cold as she has done; that plea
after plea for aid for this home has
fallen unheeded upon the ears OF
men who were directly responsible
for calling these manned and crippled
boys in gray into action. 1t is time
that this reprOach was washed away;
that this apathy and indifference to
the needs of brave men, whose suffer-
ings and disability were caused by
the demands of the state upon them,
should forever pass; that this confed-
crate home so long talked of, prayed
for and begged for, should be at once
put upon a stable foundation by an
endowment sufficient to provide for
the comfort Of all those who are just
ly entitled to partake of its benefits
and find the peace and content OF
home within it's walls.