The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-24
AN ENEMY OF THE NEW SOUTH.


may l be considered as the spawn OF the earth
by all honest men.
This was an entirely superauous, and
superseryiceable bit ofbluster; in bad taste
on such an occasion. General Early has
never been asked or expected to apologize
for his action during the war; he has only
been required to be a law-abiding citizen I;
to behave himself in peace with as much
manliness and moral courage as he did in
war. This he has never done. He has
never lost an opportunity since the fall
of the Confederacy to go out of his
way to speak words of mingled
bitterness and buster. 1t is most hope
full sign of the real presence of New
South that Early is the only really able
Confederate general who has done this, for
Bushrod Johnson of Maryland was too OBJ
scure as soldier and a citizen to make
his reckless talk of any influence or conse-
quence. But General Early, whose rough
tongue made General Lee playfully call
him ''my bad old man." was Union man
before the war; a good lawyer, and a SOL
der of superior talents. and since the war
he has been the most irreconcilable and
completely unreconstructed Confederate of
the whole South, always excepting JEFF
Davis and Bob Toombs.
The nation is to be congratulated that
Lee, Joe Johnston, Beauregard, Bragg,
Longstreet, Hampton, Gordon, Alexander
II. Stephens, McLaws. Buckner, Heth,
Malone and Fitz Hugh Lee behaved with
becoming dignity and used language Of
moderation after Appomattox; if they had
all talked as bitterly at every public OPP
portunity as did Early and Poombs We
should have found the pacification of the
South and the healthy growth of the New
South work SO long deferred as TO make
our hearts sick, if it did not bring Us to
another rupture. General Lee. not long
before his death, gravely rebuked South
ern woman for the passionate bitterness
of her language, saying: madam, you
do very wrong to educate your growing
children to hate the government of the
United States" This was always the
mood of Longstreet, Joe Johnston, Beau
regard and Alexander III. Stephens. Beau
regard once publicly excoriated Toombs
in Georgia hotel for the reckless senti-
ments of a speech made by him to party
of young men, in which Toombs boosted
of his refusal to take the oath and of his
undying hatred and contempt for the
United States government. If all the
good soldiers of the South had acted and
talked like Early the South would be to-
day what the Scotch Highlands were for
more than sixty years after the expulsion
of James the Second; hornets nest of
unreconstructed Jacobites, never weary
of plotting rebellion against the English
throne and the restoration of the weak,
cruel and contemplate Stuarts.
That the South did not become such
hive of turbulence and instruction; that
there is New South today that outruns
in real prosperity the widest dream of
restoration seen by her most sanguine
sons the night after Appomattox, is not
the fault of General Early, who has chosen
for more than twenty-five years to talk
only as a bad citizen and political incen-
diary ever allows himself to talk. An old
man, for he graduated in 1887 with Sedg-
wick, Joe Hooker and Bragg, he devotes
every hour of life that is now on the
brink of the grave, to educating the Young
South to hate and despise the flag of this
country, and to perpetuate all the bitter
memories that had their birth in the Lost
Cause" and ought to have expired with
its defeat.
To General Early and Southern men of
his bitter temper and reckless tongue, is
due much of the misunderstanding that
still exists between the sections. Not only
does the speech of General Early do in
justice to the South at the North,
where ii is often taken as the prevail
ing mood and thought of the people,
but it does mischief in the South wher-
ever il is heard and read by ardent but
not very intelligent or conservative young
men and young women, for the women of
the South are, of course, like women
everywhere, more intense, narrower, and
more unreasonable IN their loves and hates
or prejudices than men. 1t is the inllu-
ence of such able irreconcilables as Gem
eral Early that has helped to keep alive
the dying embers of sectionalism; to keep
its people wandering to and fro among its
political tombs and graveysrds; to keep
its face in the fog instead of the sunlight.
The influence of such men as Early is
seen in the fact that at the recent grand
camp of Confederate veterans held in
fredericksburg, Va, June 10. the grand
commander reported in favor of preparing
and publishing a school history of the late
war from Southern standpoint. and also
in favor of adopting a distinctly Southern
name for the war. such as 1.-The war for
Southern independence. OF course such
school books are intended to educate the
children to believe that the war waged for
disunion was just and holy war. like
that Of the American Revolution, or
the struggle Of modern Italy for unity and
independence. These ghosts of '.the Lost
Cause" that hnger too long behind JEFF
Davis cannot kill the New South, but they
can help prolong the life of sectionalism
by teaching their children historic false
hoods.
OF course the South must hereafter be
the architect Of her own fortune; the time
has long gone by when congressional legis-
lstion can reform or excise political evils
8; the South. Congress cannot solve the
negro problem hy any legislation hence
forth; every force bill is bat a new rag TO
the cid bull. The future veal or woe Of
the New South depends whether her child.
rem initiate the eaimness and earnest
.aatri1nti.. Aast-a d, az. lf.s4..l h.. - -