The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1891-01-03
SOMETHING THEY HAVE NOT
LEARNED.

DR.. E. Med. Coffey of Platte county,
the vice president of the ex-confederate
association of Missouri for the fourth
congressional district, in an appeal to
the people OF his county to aid the
endowment of the confederate home at
Higginsvilie, uses this language:
sour destitute comrades and their
families are suffering in grim silence.
They must be sought gu and assistance
offered or they will waste away. They
are TO- doing so, because they are too
proud to beg, and beside they do not
know how"
These words might be taken for a
text for an GRAFTON as eloquent as was
ever preached at the grave OF any hero
or martyr, for it is the simple truth,
that these old confederates are "too
proud to beg, and beside do not know
how" The asking of aims; the fawn-
Ing that follows the asking, even il il
be for a crumb; the humility, affected
Or real, that is the stock in trade of
the beggar; the hat in hand and the
casting of the eyes upon the ground ;
the -tremulous voice, exercised to
whining, and full OF tears; the shufiing
gait and the air of t%hankfulness when
the hand of charity bestOws its gratuity
none of these belong to the confed-
crate soldier. He has not learned the
arts 80 necessary to the successful ex-
ercise OF the calling of the mendicant. II
may be that he is "too proud to beg"
| Certain it Is that you do not meet him
on the highways and the street corners
and in the public places where people
are wont to gather, asking ''pity for
the sorrows OF q poor old man." He
does not come to your kitchen door,
leading q miserable hollow eyed child
by the hand, to emphasize his appeal
for the bones and the waste pieces from
your table. He 10 not abject, nor is he
insolent.
The confederate soldier who has come
down to US from the titanic war of q
quarter of Q century ago, and who re
mains with US In scant numbers to-day,
could learn anything everything except
one thing. He could learn to march for
successive days and nights without
sleeping. He could learn to sleep in
the snow without blankets. He could
learn the art of cooking where there
was nothing 10 cook. He could evolve
satisfying feast from On ear of corn
or a frozen potato. He could learn
how to do without money for years.
He could learn and did learn to fighl
In the trenches, In the wilderness, in
the darkness. with famine staring from
his hollow eyes and speaking ftom his
shrunken belly to shake hands with
death a hundred times a day, and TO do
picket dufv tor four years on the
frontiers OF eternity. He learned o
thousand useful things and did as well
q thousand heroic n es He could sew,
not so deity as q woman, perhaps, but
lhis buttons stayed on until the sustain.
rags CAV way. He could make
things necessary to his modest
In camp, on the march and in
ED. He could improvise a tour
1fdhet or set a broken limb. He could
auathematise q balky mule or shrive a
departing spirit. He could dance On
the eve of battle and fire q salute over
the grave of q comrade at nightfall.
He learned the fellowship of disease aud
| p~estilence and could Jest with fate.
He was all iron, all tenderness; elo-
quent with laughter, sorrowtul with
tears. He could adapt himself to any
circumstance.
But there was one thing he never
learned and eve could learn. He
never learned to beg.
In the adjustment of the mechanism
of the confederate soldier there could
be found no place where suppliancy
would fit, and so it was left out OF his
wonderful equipment. He can starve,
but he cannot beg. He can part his
scant garment with you, but he cannot
ask Tor a fragment of your blouse. lie
may have had a phantom supper and
breakfssted on emptiness, but he will
meet you with a military salute, stand
erect in your presence, look into your
face with the eye of an equal, proud of
his past, equal to the present, and not
Lafraid of the future. His rags clothe
manhood; his o hat
pride-he fears nothing and has nothing
to be ashamed of.
It may be that the age of chivalry
has departed. Yet, II so, there are
left to us a few score OF bronzes cut
out Of. the pasta type of II generation
that gave us heroes, palladins, giants.
It. Is to gather these remnants OF a
colossal race together that M%issourians
are engaged to-day. "They are fading
away" but "they cannot beg"
The grippe still continues very yio-
ionf In NaU Orlaane tho rannrf M tho